The Furious Orange Fox
by DarthRuneis
Summary: Naruto brought back Sasuke, and is rewarded with a death sentence. Watch how Naruto escapes Death's Grip, and leaves Konoha. What happens upon his return, after training with Kyuubi? Eventual Naruharem, starting with Naruhina. Reviews loved, :D
1. 1: Prologue: The Setup

1**Chapter One: The Setup**

"Chidori!" "Rasengan!"

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"Tch, Damnit dobe, your little number took a lot outta me, now it'll take hours to get to Sound!" Sasuke then smirked, "Thanks, though, Naruto. I'll be sure to put the Mangekyou to good use!"

Suddenly, the weird red chakra surrounded Naruto's body again. Naruto began to writhe, seemingly in pain, while the chakra began to seal up all his wounds, minus the two large Chidori holes in his chest and shoulder. His eyes opened to reveal purple orbs, as opposed to his normal blue eyes.

Without a word, Naruto bolted into an upright sitting position, using his momentum to slam his fist into Sasuke's stomach, pouring Demonic Chakra into Sasuke. Sasuke screamed in agony as the Kyuubi's chakra shut Sasuke's mind off, effectively putting him into blissful unconsciousness.

With Sasuke out cold, Naruto stood up, grabbed Sasuke by the collar, and slung him over his wounded shoulder. Naruto staggered for a few moments as he finally got control back from his 'tenant'. As soon as the last of Kyuubi's influence had faded, Naruto fell to one knee and coughed up a dangerous amount of blood. As the blood continued to trickle down the sides of his mouth, Naruto began to head off in the direction of Konoha. Unfortunately, due to his current state, he was unable to get up to the higher ground that he had used to arrive at the Valley of the End in the first place, so he was forced to take a route that detoured around the higher ground, the very ground that Kakashi was taking to get to the Valley of the End. The fact that their paths would now not cross, and the fact that Naruto had virtually no excess chakra for other ninja to sense, meant that he was basically undetectable to Kakashi.

As Kakashi finally made it to the Valley of the End, he found only the remnants of what he thought must've been a brutal fight. He and Pakkun searched the area, but no sign of Naruto and Sasuke, minus the large amounts of blood, which Pakkun identified as being largely Naruto's, could be found. Kakashi was about to have Pakkun search for either Naruto's or Sasuke's scent, when the rain hit.

"Damnit! I knew not taking the Hunter-nin training in ANBU was a mistake! Damnit, where did you two go! Tsunade is going to kill me..."


	2. 2: The Return

1**Chapter Two: The Return**

A small group of Konoha ninja could be seen at the gates leading into Konoha. This group was composed of Sakura, Ino, Hinata, Gai, Shizune (with TonTon), TenTen, and Tsunade. However, after a few moments Tsunade was forced to go do her rounds in the hospital. As she was about to leave, though, the other members of the group started to stir, indicating a figure on the horizon. Tsunade turned back to get a look at who was approaching, and as the figure got closer and closer, it became very easy to tell that it was Kakashi, alone. Everyone noticed that Kakashi had his head hung low, and as he neared even more, the group was able to make out his gloomy expression. The group's hearts sank as they realised that this meant the mission was a failure, and, apparently, two of their friends were now gone. No one was hit by this more than Sakura.

Once Kakashi finally arrived at the gates, he spoke with a voice that clearly showed how much remorse he currently felt, "I arrived at what appeared to be the site of their fight, but they were nowhere to be seen, and I felt no chakra signatures in the vicinity. Pakkun examined the fresh blood we found, and most of it was Naruto's." Hinata visibly paled at hearing this, but no one seemed to notice at the time. "As I was about to have Pakkun begin to try tracking scents, it began to rain, which effectively cut off our only chance of a trail. As of now, we have lost both Naruto and Sas-..."

Kakashi was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the immediate vicinity outside the village perimeter. "Don't get ahead of yourself..." began a voice, before a loud series of we coughs could be heard, "I got the teme on my shoulder!" Those present finally recognized Naruto's voice, and its victorious sound. Naruto then finally emerged from the forest, a cloak over his body and his jacket wrapped around Sasuke's torso, which was hanging limp over his shoulder. His face bore a lot of cuts and bruises, but there was almost no blood visible on his person. Tsunade signaled for a medic team, which had been standing by near the gates' guard post. The medics immediately moved to Naruto, who handed Sasuke over to them, and insisted he was fine. The medics quickly got Sasuke loaded up and began taking him to the hospital, after Tsunade performed a quick medical diagnostic jutsu, and a little first aid (which, in Tsunade's book, included halting internal bleeding and mending broken bones). As Sakura began to understand the extend of Sasuke's injuries, she heard Naruto, who had apparently made it into the village where the group was waiting, address her, "Heh heh heh, I did it Sakura-chan, I brought Sasuke back to you!" Sakura's anger escalated upon hearing his happy tone. She stormed up to him and sent him flying into the gate with a brutal punch.

"You BAKA! What the hell did you do that to Sasuke for?! It doesn't take lethal force to bring someone back home!" As she finished her rantings, the gate which Naruto had impacted promptly collapsed in on its new occupant. As everyone, aside from Sakura and Ino, looked on mortified, they heard a revolting sound, which distinctly resembled vomiting.

As Naruto pulled himself our of the rubble, his cloak snagged and ripped itself into shreds, having been severely weakened and ripped by its impact with the gate, and then its prompt collapse in on him. Naruto's real wounds were revealed, as his now exposed chest displayed the two gaping holes in him, thanks to Chidori I and Chidori II (Which also likes the names 'Blackori' and 'Chidori Beta'). But somehow, even with these probably fatal injuries, blood covering his torso almost entirely, and blood flowing from the sides of his mouth again, he apologized to Sakura,

"I-I'm *cough* s-sorry S-S-Sakura-ch-chan." He finished his apology, the voice of which nearly broke the hearts of Hinata and TenTen, with a heavy wheeze, coughing up large amounts of blood. With that, he finally fell into unconsciousness, his blood staining the remnants of the Great Gate of Konoha.

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"What!? Are you insane, he's in critical condition! We haven't even been able to seal up his wounds yet, for the most part! All we've really done is stop his bleeding! You can go tell the Council to rot in Hell!"

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama, but my order are absolute. If he doesn't come he will be killed."

Silence. Naruto was now extremely confused as to why the racket he had awaken to had ended so abruptly. He was even more confused when tsunade came into his room, which he had just realized was a hospital room. Tsunade walked over to Naruto's bed, a while wearing a very grim face, and began to disconnect Naruto from the instruments that were helping keep him alive. Almost immediately after she had finished, he felt extremely dizzy. Tsunade was about to pull the hospital bed out, but the ANBU stopped him, saying, "I apologize, Hokage-sama, but it is improper for a Council hearing to have a bed involved. Uzumaki-san must attend the Council meeting without the hospital bed, he will be given a chair for the hearing." At this, Tsunade was speechless. Naruto may have been dense, but even he knew he had to get up and go see the Council. He struggled greatly in getting up off of the bed, much to Tsunade's horror, but was finally able to manage the strength required for the task, which amazed Tsunade to no end.

Naruto approached the ANBU and made a request, "ANBU-san, could yo go to my house and get me something to wear?" He stopped to wheeze loudly, before continuing, "I don't think a hospital gown or a bloody set of battle-worn clothes are fit for a Council hearing..." The ANBU nodded, and shunshined out of the room. A few minutes later, he reappeared holding an out fit that surprised Tsunade. She looked at Naruto quizzically, but before she could ask he answered her, "Hey, even I have a pair of clothes for formal events." Tsunade was stunned, she had no idea that Naruto would have the foresight to get formal clothing.

Naruto then proceeded to stagger into the bathroom in order to change. While he was changing, the ANBU whispered to Tsunade, "Hiashi-sama requested that I bring you as well, Hokage-sama." Tsunade merely nodded, and soon after Naruto emerged in his formal attire, which was really just an all black version of his normal clothes. However, he didn't have any of his Kunai or Shuriken holsters on his person. Tsunade wondered why he seemed to like that style of jumpsuit so much, but decided to ask it at a later time. She would regret that decision to some extent later on that day.

"Uzumaki-san, Tsunade-sama, are you ready to go?" The ANBU got nods from the both of them. They left Naruto's hospital room and began walking to the designated area for the Council's hearing. Much to Tsunade's relief, on Naruto's behalf, the meeting was being held in a Community Center not far from the hospital.

It only took them a few minutes to arrive, where a Chuunin guard led Naruto and Tsunade (who had dismissed the ANBU that was escorting them), to the Council's selected room. They entered a largely bare, plain room. Tsunade was directed up with the rest of the Shinobi Council, who were seated at a long, tall table. Naruto was told to sit in the chair that was about ten feet away from the Council's table. The chair was positioned so that every council member could see Naruto with ease. The Council seated themselves and began a quorum. Once the quorum was finished, Danzou, the head of the Shinobi Council (although still under Tsunade), dismissed the two Chuunin guarding the room's entrance, as they had done their job at witnessing the attendance of the meeting. Now that the guards had left, Hiashi Huuga stood and blurred through a series of hand seals, before calling out, "Ninja Art, Sound Barrier!" The walls of the room glowed a faint purple for a few moments, before the color faded back into the walls' natural pale white. The hearing was now officially underway.

Tsunade rose and cleared her throat before addressing the Council, "Gentlemen (Tsunade was the only woman present at this meeting), I would like a chance to explain the rules of Council hearings to Naruto before we begin. Tsunade gave Naruto a look saying, "Don't even try to act smart right now."

Unfortunately for Tsunade, Naruto had no need to _act_, so he told Tsunade, "There is no need, Tsunade-sama. I've been to these types of hearings many times before."

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"Now then," started Danzou, "I believe we can get this hearing underway. Uzumaki-san, you are being charged with the following: attempted murder, attacking an ally, reckless completion of a mission, and attempted genocide. How do you plead to these charges?" Danzou's voice seemed to betray a hint of joy by the time he prompted Naruto for his plead.

Naruto sat there in shock, as did several of the Council members, including Tsunade, and Hiashi. Naruto finally regained his ability to speak coherently and responded with, "I'm afraid I don't fully understand how I'm being charged with some of the offenses, can they be explained?"

Several council members, including Danzou, almost laughed, but opted to let out nearly simultaneous sighs instead. After all, even the Council was afraid of Tsunade, and not one person in Konoha didn't know how much she cared for Naruto. Danzou opted to just go with the Jinchuuriki's request, and began to explain how each charge came to be placed on him. "You are charged with attempted murder for the condition in which we retrieved Sasuke-san. I trust that you can understand this well enough?" Naruto, albeit grudgingly, nodded. "Good. Attacking an ally goes right along with that. Your reckless completion of a mission charge comes from you having completed the mission with excessive injuries to your comrades, Neji, Chouji, and Sasuke being the major examples. It is not important for this charge that you were not the one assigned to lead the mission, so don't even try. As for the attempted genocide charge, Sasuke-san is the last Uchiha we have in the village, so by attempting to kill him you attempted to exterminate the last of a clan that resides in Konoha, which qualifies as genocide. Now then, any other stupid questions?" Naruto grumbled and shook his head, no. "Very well. We will now read you Sasuke-san's testimony of the events of your fight." Danzou paused to bring out a scroll, which he then opened and unrolled.

"Ahem. This is what Sasuke-san told us happened in your fight: 'Me and Naruto finally met up at the Valley of the End. I was, at that time, struggling to escape from Orochimaru and Kabuto. When he made his appearance, I admit I was grateful, he provided enough of a distraction for me to take out Kabuto, although, unfortunately, I was unable to kill him. I was also able to repel Orochimaru and give him some grave injuries, which forced him to retreat with Kabuto. After I dispatched those two, Naruto approached me, and as I was about to thank him for the distraction, he punched me in the face. He then spewed some nonsense about him killing me so that he could return to the village and get Sakura-san all for himself. I told him that was a stupid idea, and that, aside from the fact that he couldn't kill me if he wanted to, Sakura-san wouldn't hook up with him even if he did. But the dobe just wouldn't accept that, so I had no choice but to fight him. It started off as little more than a spar, he'd use Clones and taijutsu, I'd use my Sharingan and fire jutsus to repel and deter him. I admit I wasn't actually aiming to hurt him, just try to knock some sense into him. But that baka just wouldn't accept what I was trying to tell him.

"So, as I noticed a strange anomaly in his chakra, he started to get more feral, and, undoubtably, a lot stronger. I-I had no choice, I had to release the seal Kakashi put on the Curse Seal, and release the first stage of the Curse Seal, just to survive his rampage. I noticed that as time went on more and more red chakra began collecting around him, starting to form the shape of what I can only describe as a Fox, or a Rabbit. Both theories of mine flew out the window, though, when a second and third 'tail' of chakra seemed to form in the cloak. I could see that this energy was hurting Naruto, so I decided I needed to end this fast, for both our sakes. I had to release the second stage of the seal, and in doing so I was able to get back on par with him, and even turn the tide in my favor. I finally knocked him down hard enough to force him out of consciousness.

"I went to go pick up him so we could return to Konoha, and get him healed, but when I did, that damnable red chakra flared up again and seemed to reinvigorate him, and the baka punched me in the gut, hard. I was basically crippled by that point, that blow was enough to knock me out of the Cursed Seal stages, and then a few blows later I was close to unconscious. As I fought blacking out, my Sharingan changed, and a third tomoe formed. I was able to avoid a few of his blows, and then I finally managed a Genjutsu that calmed him down. I think that finally got him to see how stupid he was, and how hurt we both were. I told him I forgave him for everything he said and did, but that baka just never knew when to give up, and eventually I passed out. I'm guessing he carried me back. I guess I do kind of owe my life to him." Danzou finally finished reading off Sasuke's report of what had transpired, and Naruto was utterly crushed. He had no idea that Sasuke was capable of lying like that, especially when Naruto considered him to be honorable, and to some extent, humble. He finally came to the conclusion that that story must have been fake, and that this whole damn hearing was just a setup to get him into some deep trouble.

But, Naruto realized, there was absolutely no way to prove this, as he suspected Sasuke was still unconscious in the hospital, and no one would believe him enough to let him try when Sasuke woke. So, Naruto reasoned, he was basically utterly beaten. His face fell, and even the council members who utterly hated him were shocked at how sad he looked, none of them would ever admit it, but they swore on their lives no one had ever looked that sad in their entire lives as shinobi, and _that's_ saying something.

Danzou cleared his throat again, getting the desired effect from Naruto, who returned his attention to the Council. Danzou asked him, in the most formal, and authorized voice he could muster, "Do you have anything you wish to add, change, or deny about this account of the events in question?"

Naruto clenched his fists, and knew he was going to regret this choice, but replied, "No. Thats exactly what happened." Tsunade, and the other council members who actually believed that Naruto wasn't the one who should be on trial, were shocked, not only by his admittance, but that his voice betrayed a feeling that no one had ever heard in Naruto's voice before: defeatedness.

Danzou opted to continue the hearing, and so he restated his original question to Naruto, "How do you plead to the charges you are facing, Uzumaki-san?"

Naruto had no choice by this point, he figured he might as well play into their hands even more, "Guilty."

Danzou inwardly chuckled happily. "Very well then. For such transgressions, there will be a vote of whether or not we shall put the Death Sentence into play. Those who are in favor of the Death Sentence, stand now." Nine council members, including the Haruno Clan Head, Yamanaka Clan Head, Danzou, and the ANBU representative. "All opposed?" Hiashi, Tsunade, Jiraiya, the Inuzuka representative, and two other council members, who Naruto did not know of, stood. "Very well, then. By a vote of Nine to Six, Naruto Uzumaki will hereby be put to death for his transgressions against Konoha. KAI!" Danzou released Hiashi's barrier and called in one of the Chuunin guards, "Bring Kakshi-san here immediately." The Chuunin nodded and left. About five minutes later, he reentered the room, with Kakashi following behind closely.

Danzou looked at Kakashi and gave his order, "Hatake Kakashi, we are in need of your services as a Jounin of Konoha. Uzumaki-san here has been sentenced to death, and you are to be his executioner. You have no right to decline this right, as you were his Jounin sensei, and he is still your responsibility. You may say goodbye to your student, and then you must kill him where he sits now. The method of execution is at your discretion, but it needs to be immediately fatal in its nature."

Kakashi was, for lack of a better term, mortified. In his mind, he had failed all of his students horribly, and now he was being asked to execute one of them? He knew that life as a shinobi was never going to be easy, and most likely not be fair, but even he thought this cruelly unfair, to himself, but to a far greater extent, to Naruto. Kakashi hung his head, before nodding. He walked over to Naruto, and kneeled down.

"Naruto, I am so sorry for this. I have failed you as a friend, comrade, and sensei. I hope you can forgive me some time down the road. I really don't want to do this to you, but as you can see, I have to..." Kakashi then went through some hand seals, before yelling, "Chidori!" Kakashi was not finished there, though. He then formed, in his other hand... "Rasengan!" Naruto was shocked that his sensei knew Rasengan as well as Chidori, and was instantly jealous. But Naruto pushed those thoughts out of his mind, as a more pressing matter, DEATH, was about to envelop him.

Naruto didn't even think. He merely acted. He let out a feral roar, as three tails of the Kyuubi's chakra formed behind him almost instantly. He let out a roar, both of anger and pain, as a fourth tail formed, this time peeling his skin off his body and spilling his blood all over the room. The council watched in horror as the last of Naruto's identifying features were overrun by a black chakra adhereing to his form. But he didn't stop there, a fifth tail formed, and the size of Naruto and his cloak nearly doubled. Finally, a sixth tail had formed, but, unlike the last two transformations, this transformation seemed to bring Naruto back to his old self. Little did anyone know, but Naruto and the Kyuubi had just become very good friends...


	3. 3: The Escape

1**Chapter Five: The Escape**

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Naruto stood in the Council's chosen chamber, with six demonic chakra tails emanating from a red chakra cloak surrounding his entire being. Naruto's eyes were a strange combination, one was blue, and the other was a slitted crimson. Naruto picked Kakashi up by the collar, and threw him into the wall away from both the Chuunin and the council members. Naruto stood glaring at Danzou and the other council members that had stood against him. He spoke to them all only once, "I hereby overrule your sentence. I will take being a nukenin over being dead any day, and if any of you have a problem with that, you can take it up with Kyuubi-sama."

After his declaration of defiance and abandonment, the four Chuunin guards stationed at the building sprang into action, surrounding Naruto, kunais in hand. Naruto just smirked, and taunted them, "Do you really think you have what it takes to fight a shinobi with two thirds of the Kyuubi's strength amplifying his arsenal?" The Chuunin seemed to cower in fear for a moment, but they stayed true to their duty and quickly shook off their fear, opting to jump at Naruto, intent on slitting his throat with their kunai.

Naruto didn't even bother to move, he merely used one tail of his for each would-be assailant, cleaving them in two (okay, well, he decapitated one of them, so sue me). He then shot another glare at the council members who were now inscribed into his memory as his worst enemies, ranking higher than Orochimaru and Akatski.

He then opted to delay killing them for another time, and decided to spring toward the exit of the building. As soon as he made it out the door, he was surrounded by what was quite possibly every ANBU in Konoha, as they, along with every other person in Konoha, shinobi and civilian alike, had felt the presence of the Kyuubi's chakra. He merely growled at them, and a few actually flinched at it. Those ones were dead before they could regain their composure, two of them had been sliced clean in half vertically, five others held the same fate but on a horizontal demise, while two of the three others had been decapitated, and the last one had been entirely delimbed, head included. All of that had happened in a split second, in which not even one of the ANBU had registered his movement, not even the Hyuuga ones. He then barreled off toward the main gate of Konoha.

That was when, as Naruto would later claim, 'everything turned to shit'. At the gate where the Rookie Nine, minus him, Chouji, and Sasuke. As he neared, they turned to see what the fearful being was, and they were all shocked to find it to be Naruto. No matter how much Naruto wanted to escape, he was entirely unwilling to lay a hand against his friends in his current form, so he attempted to jump over them entirely, and that worked, that is, until Kiba Gatsuuga'd his gut.

Naruto spit up blood, as Kiba had hit the bigger of the two Chidori holes in his chest, and, being that his fourth and fifth tail transformations had left his skin in bad shape, the wound easily reopoened, spilling a torrent of blood that was only barely avoided by his friends. Naruto landed and swiveled around to face them. He noticed that all of them, aside from Sakura, were terrified of what was in front of them. He chose this time to inform them all of several truths of himself.

"Well, if you guys want to try to stop me, I think there are a few things you should know." It was at this point that the Konohamaru Corps got into range to hear him speak. "I have been sentenced to death for the Save Sasuke Mission. I am merely trying to get away from death itself. And if you want to stop me, as it is your duty as Konoha shinobi to do so, you should know the main reason why I am being hunted: I hold inside me the Kyuubi, the very same Kyuubi that attacked this village thirteen and a half years ago, on my birthday." Shock was very evident on the faces of his six friends, but for Hinata, that quickly changed into one of understanding and concern. She slowly walked up to him, which her teammates and friends strongly advised against. She paid them no attention, but finally stood in front of Naruto.

Hinata finally got up the courage to ask, "Naruto, please, take me with you!" Everyone, save Naruto, audibly gasped. Naruto just stood there shocked, his demonic form still scaring everyone, and the ANBU who should've arrived by now were taking their time, especially after Naruto had caused ten of the strongest ANBU in Konoha to cower in fear, and then promptly dispatched all then of them in the blink of an eye. Naruto took a while to regain his composure, and in doing so, two of his tails faded away, since his rage and hatred at Konoha had slightly weakened.

He hated what he was about to do to Hinata, as he had, shortly before the Save Sasuke mission, realized how Hinata must've felt about him (with Sakura's prodding, of course). He knew how much she admired and respected him, and the fact that she didn't walk up to him and Jyuuken his heart was proof enough that she was sincere in caring enough about him to request to tag along. But he knew she wouldn't be able to stand the life he'd have to live after this.

The only answer he gave her was a swift karate chop to her kneck, before whispering to her, "I'm sorry, but this is for your own good." He grabbed her as she fell, and gently laid her down. However, his distraction cost him dearly, as Kiba grew enraged at what he had done to his friend (and who he secretly liked just about the same way that Hinata likes Naruto), and threw caution into the wind, forming his Gatsuuga with chakra enhanced rotation speed.

Naruto looked up in time to receive a superpowered Gatsuuga to his face, which had a very brutal affect on his look, strong as he was with Kyuubi's four tails. Naruto was thrown back into the dirt outside Konoha's gates, blood soaking the soil, from the new injuries the second Gatsuuga had done, or from the ones the first Gatsuuga had reopened, no one knew. But when Naruto stood up and looked back at his former friends, they saw just how injured he was now. Naruto's face was now leaking blood, seemingly from every pore on his face. And yet Naruto looked back at his friends, not with hatred, anger, or hurt, but with remorse.

Naruto apparently decided that it was time for him to leave, as the ANBU had finally gotten their backbones back (probably at the loss of two tails worth of chakra), and were ready to charge him. Naruto then surprised everyone for a final time that day, and promptly shunshined to safety.


	4. 4: The Battle Begins

1**Chapter Four: The Battle Begins...**

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Two years. It had been two long, anger-filled years since he had last let this power out. But at this point he was left with no other options, he had knocked Kisame out, but Itachi's genjutsus were starting to take their toll on Naruto. Naruto couldn't hold back any longer, hi strongest abilities could only be used with the Kyuubi's help and chakra. So Naruto did what he had sworn to save for Pein, he decided to release the Kyuubi and relinquish control.

He sped through a series of hand seals, while Itachi recovered from a failed Amaterasu attack. He called out a jutsu he had created based on Gaara and Sasuke's fight in the Chuunin exams, "Earth Style: Earth Cocoon Jutsu!" Itachi groaned in aggravation as hard minerals, soil, and rock broke apart at Naruto's feet, before surrounding said opponent and coming together to form a near perfect sphere of some of the hardest naturally occurring elements and substances on earth. Itachi could sense Naruto channeling chakra for another jutsu, but his cocoon prevented Itachi from hearing the name of this jutsu, or even what type of jutsu it was. Needless to say, Itachi was shocked as wooden pillars shot toward the cocoon from several angles, coming out of both the ground (these seemed to be more like roots than hard wood) and nearby trees, hoisting Naruto's Mineral Cocoon up several feet into the air.

IT was only then that Itachi realized that some very strong people, ones he knew very well, were approaching. And they weren't far off at this point. Itachi smirked as he bit his thumb, and proceeded to blur through a fairly short hand seal sequence, before slamming his opened hand flat onto the ground, causing a series of kanji to shoot out from the epicenter of his strike, six lines coming out from said spot, while a ring of kanji formed a circle about halfway up the lines. As soon as the kanji had stopped forming and moving, which happened to take only a few milliseconds, Itachi called out his jutsu, "Summoning Jutsu!" As the smoke cleared from his summoning, Itachi was revealed to be surrounded by his Akatsuki comrades, and the form of a large rock statue (well, more like monument) could be seen, as a silhouette, rising up from the ground. Once it had stopped rising and the smoke had finally completely cleared, several of the statue/monument's nine eyes opened. **(A/N: If someone can give me a bit more insight onto how to describe the statue you should all know I'm talking about, I would greatly appreciate it).**

Itachi's teammates, after analyzing their environment, which happened to be a remote forest with a large Naruto-made clearing, or should I say wasteland, the rest of Akatsuki slightly smirked at Itachi's plan. Konan, the only woman in Akatsuki, walked over to Kisame's unconscious form and dematerialized her left hand as it stretched out toward Kisame. The paper-like substance that was removed from Konan flew onto Kisame and glowed a light, innocent violet. After nearly a minute of this, Kisame awoke, and Konan's paper substance detached itself from Kisame and returned to Konan, reforming her left hand. Now Akatsuki was back to full strength, although Kisame and Itachi were slightly chakra deprived at this point. This was all that Akatsuki needed, as they each leapt to their positions on the statue/monument, preparing to seal away the Kyuubi before it burst out of its Mineral Cocoon. Their plans were interrupted, however, by that very event.

Akatsuki looked up from their not quite started sealing, as they heard wood and roots moving, and felt a large tremor as Naruto's cocoon slammed into the ground. Soon after, said cocoon developed a large crack along its vertical middle, and a killing intent that was strong enough to humble every member of Akatsuki leaked out. Before Akatsuki could react to this threat, the cocoon burst into billions upon billions of shards of mineral and earth, as red Demonic Chakra surged out from the being that had been residing inside. Akatsuki groaned as they had missed their opportunity, and Itachi promptly dismissed the statue/monument **(A/N: If someone can give me it's name I'd be grateful, I don't feel like looking it up :P)**. Akatsuki regrouped on the ground, surrounding their soon to be pray. It was then that Konan chose to scold Pein, much to the rest of the organization's irratance, "Pein, I told you you should have brought all six bodies, now your Rin'negan is practically useless!"

The man addressed as Pein scowled at Konan for her idiocy, "And just why did you feel the need to inform our opponent of this?"

Konan was taken aback, _'How could I have been so stupid? Peins right, I just gave away his one and only weakness, one that most of Akatsuki doesn't even know about!'_ She ended her self-criticism by answering her leader, "I... I'm sorry Pein-sama, I don't have any idea why I let something like that slip..."

Pein, emotionlessness as ever with his voice, decided to let the matter go, and reassured Konan, as he knew she would not be at her best if she was doubting in herself, "Well, considering the fact that I was about to deactivate it anyway, I suppose there is no real harm done. Do NOT let it happen again, though. You know full well what will become of you if you do." He received only a nod in response from Konan, and so he turned his attention back to their adversary.

It was now that the being's form came to the attention of Akatsuki. Naruto was apparently no more, all that could be seen was a mass of treacherously dense red chakra, the density making it mostly black. The chakra seemed to be covering a body, and the body must've been Naruto's, considering the size and shape the chakra seemed to adhere to. The only thing that didn't seem to be liquid were the claws on the beings hands and feet, and the pair of menacing red eyes that seemed to float like air in the chakra being's head. Akatsuki assumed that Naruto had given in to the Kyuubi and that the Kyuubi had killed Naruto and taken over his body. They were right, to some degree.

This theory of theirs went out the window when the being's clawed hands began to move. Faster than anyone's eyes, be it Itachi's Mangekyou, Tobi's Sharingan, Kakuzu's...er...fucked up eyes, or Pein's Rin'negan, no one could make out just what the being's hands were doing. However, being ninja, they all sensed the immense chakra flow that had just started, and they immediately knew that this long series of hand movements were really a very long sequence of hand seals being executed unbelievably quickly. They all knew, due to the length of this hand seal sequence, what jutsu the being was going to cast. That is, they knew the nature of the jutsu, as every Jinchuuriki could, if they were close enough with their bijuu and both the person and the bijuu held immense respect for one another, perform a combination jutsu that not even the Sharingan could copy. The nature of the Nine Tailed Jinchuuriki's jutsu was about to be revealed to all those present.

"**Demonic Arts: Jinchuuriki Style: Barrier of the Nine Jutsu!"** Akatsuki cringed both at the jutsu they recognized, and at the voice that was unmistakably that of the Kyuubi. What happened next, however, completely surprised them, as they had never seen a Jinchuuriki and a Bijuu work together enough to actually attempt, or even know of this unique jutsu. Some of Akatsuki had been expecting the being to clone itself, or even absorb its host's naturally occurring chakra. The latter was somewhat true in this case, but had that been the case, they would have fared far better than they inevitably would.

The chakra surrounding the being's head seemed to migrate down Naruto's body, as it merged with the chakra surrounding the body's neck. A blue orb of chakra then enveloped Naruto's revealed face, which had apparently had several layers of peeled off, but it was still clearly Naruto's face. Naruto's eyes then began to swirl and glow many different colors, finally opting to flicker between red slitted eyes and Naruto's natural blue eyes. But the eyes did not stop once the flickering had slowed down enough to trick many into believing the changes to have been complete. Naruto's eyes had taken on a strange look, his left eye was the red slitted eye of the Kyuubi while his right eye was what most people remembered Naruto's eyes as, blue orbs of determination. However, just as Akatsuki began to brace themselves, Naruto's eyes underwent one final change in appearance. Naruto's eyes seemed to have finally decided on a color to use, as they both slowly faded from their red and blue, respectively, color into a deep violet.

* * *

Inside Naruto's _mindscape_, Naruto stood at the bars holding back the Kyuubi, and it was apparent that the two were engaged in a conversation.(**A/N: **_I will take this opportunity to point out that, for the most part, from now on any dialogue that is in _**bold** _will be the Kyuubi speaking, while anything else will be a mortal speaking, said mortal should be identifiable easily. However, aside from this note, _italics _will represent a person thinking, and I will also use ' instead of " outside of the person(or, if its __**bold**__, the Kyuubi's)'s strain of thought(s)._

"Kyuubi-sama, it seems we finally managed to pull off our jutsu." Spoke an unnaturally calm Naruto.

"**Yes, kit, it seems we have. I am grateful for this, as I believe if I had retained control for the duration this fight will likely escalate to, your body would have been utterly destroyed, and we both would have perished, regardless of who won the day."**

"Yes, I must agree. And that really would have put a hampering on the rest of my life's goals... I'm still a virgin for Kami's sake!"

"**Yes, I have been meaning to talk to you about that, Naruto..."** the Kyuubi was cut off by Naruto.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah. Save it for a different time and a different place, Kyuubi-sama!"

"**Yes, that might actually be a good idea, considering the circumstances..." **And with that, Naruto exited his mind, and prepared to end Akatsuki's crusade once and for all.

* * *

Naruto didn't even bother wasting his breath on his opponents, as he blurred through an obscure, even by Akatsuki's standards, series of hand seals and movements. They were all surprised to no end when Naruto's hands separated and then continued the seal sequence, both his hands forming one-handed hand seals completely independently of each other. They swore loudly when they heard Naruto's merged voice as he ended the series of hand seals by joining his hands together in his most familiar hand sign, and his voice rang out as a thundering boom, "Demonic Arts: Jinchuuriki Style: Demonic Chakra Clone Jutsu!"

A large plume of smoke and dust obscured Akatsuki's vision of their opponent, and when it finally cleared, not a person on the planet could determine which of the now nine Naruto-headed chakra beings were the original. Strangely, each being had a different number of tails, and, assuming each one represented each of the Jinchuuriki/Bijuu that are, or had been, alive, had a slightly differently colored Demonic Chakra enveloping them. The 'clones' then began to morph there heads into people that Akatsuki had known much too well, the faces of the other Jinchuuriki of the world, with their respective Bijuu's colored Demonic Chakra enveloping them similarly to how Naruto was, however, like Naruto, they had their own chakra (with its own color) shielding their face and head from their Bijuu's Demonic Chakra.

* * *

If anyone wants to be my Beta, I'd appreciate it. While I may not mess up on grammar much, if at all, the fact is that the version of Word I'm using to type this is outdated (it didn't have some of the words, other than the Japanese ones (it strangely let Kanji slide...), in its Dictionary tool :/ so I'm unsure of a few spellings), and that some things just don't seem to be worded as good as I want them to be. If anyone can help me with this and/or the translating of my english jutsu into Japanese ones (heh, its a way to get up the words per chapter at the end :D), drop me a PM.

~Darth


	5. 5: End of Bijuu

**Chapter Five:** The End of Bijuu

* * *

The nine new clone entities grouped up and formed a small circle to counter the circle Akatsuki had been using to surround them. Each bijuu stared down one opponent, minus Naruto/Kyuubi (the original), who stared down both Itachi and Pein. By this time, the sheer amount of dense chakra in the area was beginning to have an effect on the weather. Clouds seemed to be drawn in to the center of this chakra supercell. Unbeknownst to the nineteen combatants, who were all too absorbed in their opponents, two squads of shinobi had been attracted to this chakra surge.

As the first group finally made it to the last of the trees that lined the man-made wasteland, the clouds had begun to stir. The moment the squad had taken up positions in three different trees, a bolt of lightning struck the center of the inner circle, and in an instant the nineteen combatants had sprung into action.

Only two of the recently arrived squad was able to track what was going on, seeing as they were both Jounin. Regardless of their rank, the two were amazed, and scared, of the sheer power and speed being displayed. The only indications that the other two squad members had that the shinobi were still in the clearing were the nearly constant, repetitive clangs of metal on metal, and the increasing number of useless ninja tools that now riddled the ground, more falling down all around every other second. But, to the female on the team's dismay, almost all of the fallen kunai and shuriken had been discarded due to the metal having bent from the impacts they were enduring. What surprised the squad's four-year sensei (can you figure out which squad it is yet?) the most (at least about the 'weapon graveyard') were the chips of dark blue metal, that seemed to be shaped like the scales of a shark.

After nearly five minutes of this barrage of sound and flashing, the combatants landed, each bijuu/clone facing off against their shuffled opponents. It appeared that the taijutsufest was now over, as they all began blurring through independent handseal sequences. Pein and Konan, who were now facing off against the original Naruto/Kyuubi, apparently favored a Genjutsu approach, while Kisame attempted to summon his sharks (who, for some fucking reason, could fly, or at least float), and Itachi proceeded to try to barbeque his opponent with Amaterasu. Apparently, Itachi and Zetsu were hungry, because Zetsu had tried a strange jutsu of what appeared to be an alteration of Wood Style. Zetsu had summoned up a series of barbed, purple vines, while he sank into the ground, only to appear a moment later, his giant..a…plant-jaw things… growing and trying to devour his four-tailed opponent.

At the same time, Sasori had unleashed three of his puppets, who had a great variety of sharp, poison-drenched blades closing in on his three-tailed opponent. Deidara chose to be even less subtle, opting to create a 'clone' of himself from strange dough, which he proceeded to pick up and throw at his seven-tailed opponent. Kakuzu's four chakra entities had revealed themselves and proceeded to merge, before the Earth Mask opened a hole in the earth, bringing out some coal, tinder, and numerous other volatile natural substances before the Air and Water masks created a hazy steam, which happened to be pure hydrogen, before the Air and Fire masks proceeded to unlease a white-hot torrent of flame at their five-tailed opponent, the flames engulfing the hydrogen and turning blue before contacting the volatile substances and quadrupling (4x) in size. Hidan had taken a small amount of time in order to summon up some manner of evil spirits, which clone themselves several times before charging Hidan's eight-tailed opponent. Tobi had chosen to enlarge his head and mask, as well as enlongating his neck before proceeding to try to play whack-a-bijuu.

Just as each of Akatsuki's attacks were about to land, the bijuu/clones' hand seals had slowed, and were somehow perfectly in sync, as the beings started to chant, "Pig. Horse. Dragon. Ram. Pig. Tiger. Cat. Ram. Pig. Ram. Tiger. Demon" **(A/N: Need to have those translated into the handseal names, I know Pig is Ino, but the rest I have no idea on)**. As soon as they had performed their last seal, they all began to glow brightly. Each of their bodies were encased in a blend of the Jinchuuriki's and the bijuu's chakra color. Each bijuu's cloak evaporated, before condensing into an orb, of varying sizes and colors, in front of the bijuu/clone's mouths. In unison, the bijuu/clones' voices rang out with a call of, **"Demonic Container Secret Jutsu: Nine-Pronged Chakra Devastation Jutsu!**" As they were calling out their jutsu, a ring of chakra, with segments colored by the chakra of the containers connected the nine dense chakra spheres, before creating a dome overtop of the nine encircled Jinchuuriki clones. This dome seemed to absorb all of Akatsuki's jutsu, and repelled Tobi and Zetsu, forcefully.

Akatsuki instinctively jumped back, as did the unnoticed Konoha squad, though it was more of an all out sprint to the nearest apocalypse-proof shelter for them. It seems this had been a good decision, for once they were nearly half a mile away, the dome pulsed, and nearly a third of a mile in every direction was quickly engulfed by this ultimate jutsu. After only a few moments, the dome of deadly light subsided, and Naruto's clones poofed out of existence, as he fell to one knee, gasping for air and trying to steady his heartbeat. All around him lay scorched earth that formed a crater nearly twenty feet deep at the edge of the dome's original perimeter.

The squad from Konoha looked behind them as they heard the jutsu end. For the first time since arriving, one of them spoke, "Holy shit…"

The female of the group nodded, while the other of the younger males added, "Talk about your 'flames of youth'…"

* * *

I hope I didn't disapoint in this chapter, I don't know a whole lot about Zetsu, Tobi, or Konan's fighting abilities, so I kinda improvised. Sorry for not updating, been a bit busy with other things *cough* exams *cough*. I'll try to keep this up to date from now on.

Let me know how I'm doing, this is my first really in-depth story, and I need feedback. Best way to do that is to Review :D


	6. 6: The Return

**Chapter Six: **The Return

* * *

Team Gai sped through the even shorter amount of trees to see if Akatsuki was really finished. When they arrived, Naruto (who they didn't recognize) was horribly burnt by the afteraffects of using so much of Kyuubi's power. Team Gai still wasn't sure if it was Naruto or the eight-tails Jinchuuriki. As they traversed through the crater, they felt a strange presence nearby. Neji reactivated his Byakugan, and saw what appeared to be a ghost of chakra absorbing eight different, fading chakra signatures. He watched in amazement, while relaying the events to his comrades. Soon enough, the last of the eight minor chakra signatures faded completely, and the spiritual chakra and the victorious Jinchuuriki seemed to be speaking to one another.

* * *

"**Well, kit, it is done. I have finished absorbing my remnants. But, unfortunately, I was correct originally. I still can't reform my body, or return to you. It appears I will have to return to my world, and most likely will never be able to return to yours."**

"I see… I'm sorry, Kyuubi-sama. I shouldn't have overdone that last attack… I have failed you, and cost you your freedom." Naruto replied in a sad tone.

"**Do not worry yourself about my matters, kit. You didn't overdo anything, anything less than what we just did would likely have let some of Akatsuki slip through our grasp. As I told you when I taught you this, this would be the only way, save mutual death, we could part ways."**

"Still, you and I both know I failed. We only got one of Pein's bodies, and the one we took out last year has surely been replaced. So now Pein still has five bodies, and will still be after the eight-tails. I fear even with you gone, he could complete his plans."

Kyuubi grunted seemingly from some sort of a strain, before he willed himself to address Naruto one last time, **"Well, kit, my time left on this side is nearing an end. I won't lie, I will miss you. These last two years have been… fun, but forget about me, go enjoy your life, free from your burden. You've saved many lives here today. Don't let yourself think otherwise. Well, I've got to go now. It was nice… er… well, being sealed inside you, Naruto."**

And with that, the Kyuubi disappeared, leaving a distraught Naruto behind. It was only then that he sensed the Konoha ninja approaching. He glanced behind him, and took in who it was. With the last of his energy, he transformed himself, and shunshined away, just as Team Gai landed on the circular platform, catching his shunshin's flames dying away.

* * *

Neji growled in irritation, "Damnit! He shunshined out, and that chakra entity is gone. I knew stopping to observe what was happening was a mistake! I can't even look far enough around to find a trail of chakra to follow his shunshin with!"

"What!? How could anyone, even the eight or nine tails Jinchuuriki, possibly be able to move after all that?! Didn't you see how many layers of skin he lost and how bloody his clothes were!?" Tenten yelled.

"Yes, Tenten, we did. We don't know any more than you do." Came her sensei's calm reply. "Lets just hope he's alright."

"Well, I just hope it wasn't Naruto. Tsunade would kill us if we failed to let him know about the evidence she found a few days after Sasuke ran off again." Tenten mused sadly.

* * *

"Hmmm… Sounds interesting. I'll have to contact Tsunade then. Well, I'd better get out of here bef-" Naruto was cut off as a kunai grazed his nose and stuck itself in a tree. Naruto whirled his head around, failing to notice the kunai turn itself back into paper. Naruto set his eyes on three people he thought to be dead (well, one of them was technically only really 20% dead, but still), Itachi, Pein, and Konan. "Shit!" He yelled, and before Pein or Itachi could strike, Naruto poofed out of existence. He failed to hear, as did Team Gai (who was about to leave), the remaining members of Akatsuki's aggravated curses, directed at Naruto, who was, in reality, miles away, with the other ninja squad. In fact, he was sparring with an old friend when his clone's memories flooded his mind.

Sasuke noticed Naruto's eyes glaze over slightly, and knew exactly what it meant. He ceased his attack, and walked up to Naruto, waiting for him to siphon off the information he cared about.

Naruto finally snapped out of his daze-like state of memory gathering. He noticed Sasuke staring at him curiously. "Heh. Good news, Sasuke. Itachi survived!"

Sasuke's eyes widened ast this new piece of information, "H-How?!"

"How the hell should I know!? I'd guess he used that damn body replacement technique Akatsuki loves to use. Either way, Konan and all of Pein survived too." He let this soak in before he decided to hit Sasuke with another revelation, "And… Kyuubi-sensei is gone…" The mood soured immensely at this, as Naruto let Sasuke get over this, before unleashing the best news. "Hey, don't get too down, apparently there might be reason to believe that Tsunade has a way for us to return!" Naruto declared happily.

* * *

The Great Gates of Konoha finally came into view, as Naruto, Sasuke, Kabuto, and Tayuya made their way to what would, hopefully, become their new home/home again.

"Heh, we're almost there." Kabuto sighed happily.

"Yeah! About fucking time we got fucking close enough to see those mother fucking Gates!" Tayuya's declaration got deadpans out of her comrades.

Sasuke noticed Naruto's strange demeanor. "Naruto, we don't have to do this, you know. We don't want to force this on you if you don't want to bring up your past…" Sasuke's offer instantly got Tayuya and Kabuto's attention, and they looked to their leader with understanding eyes.

As the group continued to get closer to Konoha, they began to worry. Naruto was almost never this quiet for this long. Tayuya was about to restate Sasuke's offer but Naruto cut her off before she could begin, "It's alright, guys. You three deserve to get your home back, to get back into a safe, reliable life. I can deal with whatever might come up."

They weren't convinced, but let it slide. They'd learned not to drag things on with Naruto, especially if it was something painful like this.

A few more minutes of silence passed before the group was stopped at the Gate, by Shikamaru. "State your names and business." Came the lazy Chuunin's voice, not even glancing up from his book, 'The Art of Cloud Gazing', by Shikaku Nara.

Naruto chose to use a deep voice as he answered, "Names can wait, but we're here for a meeting with Lady Hokage. We have already scheduled it with her."

Shikamaru nodded as he replied, not glancing up from his book, and clearly not recognizing Naruto's deeper-than-usual voice, "Right. Hokage has already confirmed. Do you need an escort?"

"No, thanks. We should be able to get there on our own." Came Naruto's reply.

"Alright then, I won't keep you. Might want to hurry, though, you're late. And Tsunade is dangerous to people who are late." Shikamaru clearly had not heard the group moving away already.

"Heh, don't worry Shikamaru. I know how to handle Baa-chan!" Needless to say, this got Shikamaru's attention, as he bolted upright just in time to see a laughing Naruto shunshin away, with Sasuke, Kabuto, and Tayuya.

"What the hell!?" Shikamaru yelled in shock and confusion, as he dropped his book and tried to figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, not even his IQ could wrap itself around what could possibly be happening.

* * *

A knock could be heard in Tsunade's office, as she looked up from her lesson with Sakura and Ino, while Shizune had been supervising (mainly by keeping Tsunade sober). Shizune regretted her proximity to Tsunade as said Hokage bellowed, "Who the hell is it!? You better not be that late client who wanted to request a mission!" By this time, Jiraiya began slowly closing the window he had been about to jump in through. Unfortunately, before he could finish, a stapler had done its job, as well as implanting itself into Jiraiya's forehead. Said Sannin could be heard screaming as he fell off the Hokage's tower.

This little episode, along with the doorknob turning, served to motivate Sakura, Ino, and Shizune to edge over to the corner (work with me) of the office, where they huddled together, cowering in fear as they tried to make themselves either invisible, or at the very least as small as possible. Apparently they forgot they were ninja and could transform, but that's beside the point.

The door opened slightly, and a hand stretched out to catch the scroll that had been thrown toward the door at nearly Mach 4. Everyone in the room stared in disbelief as the hand tossed the scroll back to Tsunade, before it started to thrash around, as if trying to relief itself of pain. "Son of a…! Is that how you greet us after all this time, Baa-chan?!"

The room was utterly silent, as a bird who had landed moments ago promptly shit itself before falling off the tower, as Naruto's rag-tag squad strode into the Hokage's office. Narto stood there beaming at Tsunade, while Sasuke bore a small smirk, Tayuya looked angry as hell, er, I mean normal, and Kabuto was shaking his head in amusement.

"Long time no see, Tsunade Baa-chan." Naruto chirped happily. He waited as Tsunade opened her mouth, but no words managed to escape before a blur of black slammed into Naruto, yelling, "Naruto-kun! You're back! Oh, I missed you so much, you loudmouthed little…" Shizune stopped shaking the near-lifeless Naruto as she remembered who was watching. With a blush that would make Hinata proud (and yet, jealous), she baked away, blushing even harder when Tsunade and Sasuke started snickering.

This little reunion seemed to ease all the tension in the room, as Sasuke looked in the corner where Shizune had leapt from. When he laid eyes on Sakura and Ino, he smiled brightly at them, surprising four of the women in the room a great deal. Shaking off her most recent episode of shock, Tsunade decided to get things underway, "Well, while its great to see you again Naruto, I must admit I'm confused as to why you're here. Mind explaining?"

"Heh, I suppose I should. First, though, has Gai's team reported in yet?" Once again, Tsunade was gaping, but managed a nod. "Settle down, Tsunade, I'll explain. I'm assuming that Gai told you one of the Jinchuuriki defeated all of Akatsuki yesterday?" Another nod from Tsunade, "Well, thats not entirely accurate... I managed to take out Zetsu, Kakuzu, Tobi, Deidara, Hidan, Kisame, and Sasori."

"What about Itachi and the other two unkown...wait.. YOU!? YOU TOOK OUT AKATSUKI BY YOURSELF?!!!!!!" As thsi realization hit Tsunade, half the village was in an uproar after her gass-shattering scream.

"Well, Pein, all six of him, Konan, and Itachi managed to escape. But, yeah, my Ultimate Shadow CLone managed to finish off the rest of 'em." Came Naruto's near-shout of a reply, as he was still trying to regain his hearing and rid himself of the ringing in his ear.

Those in the room would again have their ears damaged by Tsunade's, "YOU DID ALL OF THAT WITH A MERE CLONE?!!!!!"

"Well, yeah. I couldn't skip my spar with Sasuke, now could I?"

By now, Tsunade seemed to have lost her ability to yell, and her voice had become hoarse and quiet. "You mean to tell me that you went off to spar with a traitor while having one of your clones fight off the world's most powerful group of criminals?"

Tsunade face-faulted at Nartuo's reply of "Yep!"

"Well, might we get back to why you felt the need to schedule afake meeting with me?" Tsunade said, changing the subject.

"Sure thing. Before I dispelled my clone, I heard Tenten say something that piqued my interest. She said something about you uncovering evidence after I was banished."

"Ah, yes. Has Sasuke told you why he left again?" Tsunade's voice had begun to lose its hoarse quality by now.

"Yes, he did Tsunade-sama. He told me that after learning about my banishment, he was sickened by the village so much he left it again out of spite."

"Well, thats partly true. But, it appears that Sasuke learned about how he somehow testified against you for the council. He told me, shortly before returning to nukenin status, that he hadn't done such a thing. Hell, he'd been asleep recovering for nearly three days before he regained consciousness for the first time. We learned shortly after he left that the council had indeed forged Sasuke's report. Once they confessed, I was allowed to try to bring you back. So, I'm here to offer you and Sasuke positions as Konoha ninja once again."

"We can't accept those terms, Tsunade-sama." Sasuke's statment, which Naruto made no motion of an objection to, surprised and depressed teh four Konoha kunoichi present. "Don't be too down, we just have a counter offer in mind."

"Yes, I want Sasuke reinstated as a Konoha Chuunin. I would also like for Tayuya here to be registered as a civilian, ninja if she wishes. Finally, I would like for Kabuto to join Konoha's medical teams." Naruto continued.

"And why in the blue hells would I ever take in two Sound ninja!?" Tsunade spat.

Naruto quirked his brow, "You mean you didn't hear? Sasuke killed Orochimaru and liberated all Sound captives and ninja three days ago." Naruto said calmly. Before Tsunade could make a retort, Naruto silenced her with a hand, "Stop. Let them both give you their reasons for returning." He received a nod, and Kabuto stepped forward.

"Tsunade-sama, I know what you may be feeling towards me, but hear me out. I only joined Orochimaru because I knew from the day I met him what I could expect him to try. I felt it my duty as a medic to go along and try to ease the pain, or end the suffering of, any of his victims. Being a Konoha spy was something I had to bear becoming in order to help those prisoners in the long run." Kabuto finished and stepped back, as Tayuya stepped forward to take Kabuto's place as speaker.

"Tsunade sama, you should know very well what kind of man Orochimaru was. His damned curse seals didn't control us, thats tru enough," This piece of information rocked Sakura and Ino to the core, as they had just realised how much damage they had caused their friends over their fangirlish-ness, "but they weighed our minds with mental agony, forcing us to uknowingly change our personalities. These changes are what lured people hi bit to him. As he is now dead, the curse marks are gone and all of us infected returned to our old selves quickly after." Tayuya paused to let out a sigh, "Hell, I wasn't even a ninja when he got me. But after all this time, I can't help the fact that I'm a killer, and being a ninja is all I have now. That being said, Blondie here has inspired me to join Konoha in order to use my skills to help people."

"You talk as if you and NAruto are friends. Even Naruto can't change people that quickly. Why are you deceiving me!" Tsunade finished with a snarl.

Sasuke came to Tayuya's rescue (either from Tsunade or her own temper, no one can be sure), "The curse seals never were perfected. The further we got from ORochimaru, the less influence it had over us. Since Kabuto was my medic, as well as Orochimaru's right-hand man, I was allowed to venture farther away from him than most of his victims. Tayuya was assigned to us as she is very skilled in Genjutsu, and that balanced out our 'squad' pretty nicely. Having been with them for so long, I got to know the real them when we got far enough away from Orochimaru. After about a year with Orochimaru, on one of our trips out of his grasp I confided in them about my past. After that, we began to meet up with Naruto as often as possible in order to train with each other. What can I say, you and I both know how Naruto is, just like he grew on us, he grew on them." Sasuke finished with a reminiscent smile. This story further confused and shamed Sakura and Ino, and they began to see Naruto in a new light.

Tsunade sighed as she went over all the information she jad just received. She finally came to a decision, "Alright, Naruto. I accept your terms. However, each of them will go through a one month trial period as Special Genin. I will give them up to B-rank missions by the end of the trial period. After which, if they wish, they can go along with your suggested positions." Naruto and his team nodded, "As for you, gaki. I'd be happy to grant you Jounin rank."

"No can do, Tsunade." Naruto's declination, once again, stunned Konoha's kunoichi, and put a grave look of knowing on the faces of his team. "I have... 'things' I must take care of. I won't return to the village just to put it in danger again. Even with Kyuubi-sensei gone from our world, Pein doesn't know that, yet, so if I rejoin Konoha, it will be in grave danger the moment Pein finds out. I made a deal for Sasuke, Tayuya, and Kabuto. I didn't say I'd be joining again."

Tsunade was heartbroken, but knew he was right in every way. A tear escaped her eyes as she nodded, "Well, will you stay long enough for us to announce to the village our three new comrades?"

"Sure. Can we do it now? I think your yelling alerted half the village anyway." Naruto chuckled as he remembered the cheers he heard when she told the whole village about Akatsuki.

"Fine by me, gaki. Shizune, Sakura, Ino!" The three kunoichi in the corner were snapped out of their overloaded braindead dazes, and they turned their attention to their sensei and leader, "Go and sperad the word. I need to make an important announcement that all of Konoha would do well to hear." Tsunade's 'three little helpers' just nodded dumbly, and left to begin their task, believing that this strange dream would end sooner if they just went along with it. Who can blame them, Naruto had just outsmarted Tsunade, and declined becoming a Jounin, after all.


	7. 7: Goodbyes

**Chapter Seven:** Goodbyes

* * *

An hour and a half later, Konoha was gathered around the Hokage tower, staring up at their leader, who was on top of the building, with an unusually large ANBU escort. As the last of the stragglers shuffled into the courtyard at the base of the tower, the crowd settled down as Tsunade cleared her throat.

"Citizens and shinobi of Konoha, today we have regained a long lost comrade, and he brings us even more comrades, which he has saved from Orochimaru's grasp. Today, we welcome Tayuya, Kabuto, and Sasuke Uchiha back into Konoha!" At the first two names, the citizens and shinobi were confused, even more so when the two had stepped forward. However, upon hearing and seeing Sasuke, the village erupted in cheers. After a few minutes of cheering, Tsunade raised her hand, and the crowd slowly calmed down. "Ahem. There is still more good news. As many of you, I'm sure, heard, most of Akatsuki has been killed. We have one of our own to thank for this." Before Tsunade could finish, the crowd roared in pleasure and cries of "Way to go Sasuke!" and "We knew you were the best Sasuke!" could be heard clearly over and over again.

Sasuke stepped forward, and the crowd instinctively went silent once again. "You fools. I am not the one who beat Akatsuki. I am no where near strong enough, not even under the guidance I had these past two years. The fact that the man who did used to be from Konoha must've confused you. He is not yet returning to this village. He has not yet forgiven you."

The crowd took offense to this, and many people shouted, "What are you talking about!? We would never insult someone that strong and noble!"

"Silence!" The crowd was quiet once more in an instant, the malice in Sasuke's voice clearly scaring them, even the shinobi. "You act as though you're the greatest people on the planet. You're arrogant and selfish, and I'm now surprised as to how this tainted me but not the one we are talking about. I'm tired of dealing with you, I'll let he himself speak now."

The crowd watched as Tayuya, Kabuto, Sasuke, and Tsunade stepped back, out of sight. Then, they grew enraged at who stepped forward.

"What is this? Another of your damn pranks, Demon!?" The man's outburst encouraged the crowd, save some of the smarter shinobi. As the crowd got rowdier and rowdier, the ANBU were about to mobilize, but the now frowning Naruto held them back. Seeing this, the crowd got scared, fearing the Kyuubi brat had corrupted their leaders.

"This is no prank. All but three, well, eight technically, of the Akatsuki are dead by my hand. I did so by combining my power with the Kyuubi's. You have no reason to fear me, as the Kyuubi is no longer of this world. I can prove it, too." Naruto didn't give the crowd a chance to question him, as he took off his shirt, revealing his torso, and jumped down to one of the lower ledges on the tower. He then brought his hands together, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Five new Naruto's popped into existence. Naruto returned his hands to his pockets and released his clones.

One of the idiots in the crowd was not convinced, "What's that supposed to prove?! You just did your damn jutsu like you always do!" Others in the crowd began to jeer in agreement.

Naruto spoke much more loudly this time, "What this prove, my good _friend_, is that the Fourth's seal no longer appears on my stomach when I perform jutsu. Ask Jiraiya, he's seen it appear on my stomach before." The mood of the crowd went from angry to remorseful and then to down right murderous at Naruto mentioning Jiraiya.

"How dare you! Jiraiya died fighting a noble battle against Itachi!" One of the crowd members yelled. This rocked Naruto to the very core, and it was evident. Some of the more intelligent people in the crowd, mostly the ones that didn't hate Naruto, picked up on this.

The rest of the crowd took Naruto's expression as a sign they had been right, and that he'd been lying. "See? I knew it! He was lying, just look at his face!" Before the crowd could mobilize against Naruto, Inoichi Yamanaka landed in the front of the crowd, along with Ibiki and two ANBU escorting.

"Not so fast. I happen to believe Naruto, and I'm willing to put my mind on the line by checking Naruto's for any trace of the Kyuubi." This shocked the crowd, and none of them could find any way to discredit the idea.

"Well then, let's begin. Hawk-san, if you would?" The Hawk-masked ANBU next to him nodded, and went through a series of handseals before yelling, "ANBU Interrogation Jutsu: Mind Reading Dome!" A big, white dome encased the Tower and its courtyard, before Inoichi began to glow faintly. The crowd's eyes glazed over, and Inoichi began, "Naruto, stand still, please. Ninja Art: Mind Possession Jutsu!" Inoichi's body slumped to the ground, caught by the other ANBU escort, one in a Bear mask. After a moment, the crowd gasped in shock, as they saw Naruto's mindscape, through Inoichi's eyes.

Inoichi was standing in a wet sewer, and before Inoichi could start exploring, Naruto had appeared beside him. "Don't bother wandering around, Inoichi-san. I have a pretty good grasp on my mind, you wouldn't get far on your own, no offense. I'll lead you to the seal." Inoichi, although stunned by Nartuos appearance, and then insulted (even though Naruto said not to be) by Naruto's declaration, decided to follow.

After what seemed like an eternity, a change became evident in the sewer. The lights got darker, the smell got fouler, and the condition of the walls had begun to worsen. Inoichi could tell they were getting close. After a few more minutes of wandering, they finally emerged in a great room. The room was barely lit, but it was still possible to make out the enormous cage, with only a piece of paper holding it closed. Inoichi stopped, but Naruto continued forward. Naruto reached the gate, and without missing a beat tore off the seal, and let the gate swing open. A small amount of red, Demonic Chakra seeped out steadily, but Naruto paid it no attention. He strode into the cage, before the gate and barred walls evaporated.

Inoichi stood still, stunned, as the room shrank, and brightened. As more and more candles flickered on, Inoichi began to make out the far end of the room. Standing up against the wall, Naruto was staring back at Inoichi. Inoichi finally got up enough nerve to walk forward, slowly examining the now reasonably sized room. Before Inoichi could make it to Naruto, said entity spoke, jarring Inoichi from his observations and thoughts, "You should go. This part of my mind is about to collapse and reform itself now that the seal is gone. Here, let me…" And with that, Inoichi awoke in his own body.

Before any of the villagers could regain consciousness, Naruto signaled a third ANBU. The man nodded, and the Hawk ANBU moved slightly. The glow on Inoichi faded, but the new ANBU began to glow instead. The ANBU went through a short series of hand seals before yelling, "Byakugan!" The villagers' eyes glazed over once again, as they saw Naruto's chakra network, with bright blue chakra flowing through it. Some of the more observant noticed a few traces of Red Chakra in certain areas, too. After several minutes, both ANBU deactivated their jutsu, and the dome faded as everyone's eyes returned to normal.

"Is that enough proof?" Naruto asked irritably. He got no response, but, judging from the grumbles and uncomfortable looks, "I'll take that as a yes. Very well, I shall be on my way now, then. And he was gone, but several hundred villagers had been knocked down by a terribly strong breeze that happened to blow the very second Naruto had said his goodbye.

* * *

Well, thats all I have had written on paper so far, so one of two things may happen, I'll start writing on paper some more, or I'll just type it up as I think it up.

I think I'll start a poll for who you want Naruto to be paired with, so post who you want in a review (annonymous reviews are accepted):

Ayame

Hinata

Sakura

Ino

Tenten

Shizune

Sasame (filler char)

Isaribi (filler char)

Shion (I'll work her in somehow if she wins)

Other (post, try to avoid older women like Anko and Tsunade, I'd prefer not to write about them, but if 95% of you say you want them or something, then so be it)


	8. 8: The Siege

**Chapter Eight:** The Siege

* * *

"Well, now, it seems that the nine-tails and his friends have returned to Konoha. That makes things much easier now, especially since we were able to secure the eight other Bijuu before he took out the rest of us."

"Yes, Pein-sama, it is fortunate. With my memories of Konoha we should be able to find him with ease. Our plans will not be delayed any further!"

"Settle down, Itachi. While you, Konan, and I can take out all of Konoha with ease on our own, why don't we use this opportunity as intelligently as possible?" Pein's question had an unmistakable hint of cunning.

"What do you mean, leader?" Came Itachi's confused reply.

"What I mean, friend, is that we can test our new subordinates abilities by having them siege Konoha for us, creating both a testing situation for them and a distraction for us. Hell, we can grant whoever survives full Akatsuki status." Pein ended his idea with a smirk."

"Genius."

* * *

A loud siren woke the residents of Konoha, as shinobi scrambled into action, and confused and scared citizens flooded the streets. Word had spread quickly that an attack was now underway on the village, and chaos had ensued.

"Citizens of Konoha, please head to the war shelters so the shinobi have more space to work in. Make your way to the Mountain as orderly and as quickly as possible!" Tsunade's voice rained over the village, and brought a small amount of order back to the village, as the confused villagers now had something to occupy themselves with. Shortly after Tsunade's order, a tremendous explosion could be heard and seen at the front gate of Konoha, and the village's main line of defense actually fell, leaving a seventy-foot long hole in Konoha's wall.

Konoha shinobi swarmed on what used to be the front gate, as legions of Akatsuki seeped into the exposed village. All around shinobi were dying, on both sides. As a frightened 2-person family stood watching the carnage in horror, three of the enemies dropped down, surrounding them, swords and kunais at the ready. The young woman let out a scream, as she closed her eyes waiting for the sword to descend, but it never came. She saw three hooded figures grappling the would-be assailants, before columns of sand encased the criminals and ended their reign of terror forever.

Ayame and Teuchi looked up, as the three figures let their hoods down, revealing quite possibly the most famous Sand squad ever, Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro. Ayame gave the red-haired leader a smile of thanks, which the three happily returned. She then proceeded to pick up her petrified father and ran toward the nearest safehouse. "Tch. Typical Konoha, always getting themselves into sieges." Kankuro scolded playfully, before he and his siblings departed at untrackable speeds.

Then, to the horror of all the Konoha shinobi fighting at the front gate, an even bigger explosion could be heard eminating from the wall closer to the Hokage tower. Before any of the Konoha forces could mobilize, the wall connecting that section and the remaining section of the front gate fell over into a heap of rubble, leaving half of Konoha's first line of defense shattered, for the first time since the Kyuubi had attacked.

The shinobi at the front gate had no chance to mobilize and head to their leaders' aid, for the Akatsuki hoardes never seemed to end, and they continually took up all of the Konoha shinobis' attention.

* * *

"Kakashi, hurry up! Get over to that second explosion site while I evacuate the Tower!" Tsunade's voice left no room for argument, and Kakashi leapt off into the distance. Several minutes later, Kakashi herself abandoned the tower, in favor of finding whoever had interrupted her favorite time of the night, 'No-Shizune Hour', with an attack. Those who knew Tsunade well knew that this was an occasion where no one should approach or question Tsunade without a death wish. Apparently, the three/eight Akatsuki who Kakashi and Tsunade were heading for, didn't know this.

As Tsunade and Kakashi landed, they were confronted by the now infamous Pein, Konan, and Itachi, the very men who Naruto failed to kill when combined with the Kyuubi. The two groups stared each other down for several moments, before Pein's main body stepped forward, and addressed Konoha's two strongest ninja, "You can stop all this violence in an instant if you hand over Naruto. If not, we will have no choice but to kill you both and decimate your village."

"Tch. You Akatsuki never did get good intel, did you? Naruto isn't here, hasn't been here for three months now. What, did you guys hear he returned or something?" Tsunade barked back.

Pein's expression changed into anger, from whatever it was you could call it normally, "Do not try to deceive us, Hokage-sama. You think we'll just believe what you say, considering your relationship with the nine-tails container? You make me sick. Just hand him over and end the bloodshed, before I have to."

Tsunade sighed in irritation, "You just won't give up will you? I'm not lying, Naruto only brought back Sasuke, Tayuya, and Kabuto, then left. I haven't heard from him since."

Pein's only reply was six punches delivered into several parts of Tsunade's figure, which sent her to her knees. She coughed up blood, and glanced at Kakashi, who was now activating his Mangekyou. She struggled back to her feet, regaining her composure. She now knew she had to let her anger go and take this fight seriously, or she'd be dead in an instant.

* * *

From anywhere in the village, you could see fire, lightning, giant animals, trees, and boulders flying around near the site of the second explosion. It appeared as though the battle was evenly matched, but without being there, no one could tell for certain. By this point in the siege, all of Konoha's shinobi, even the newest Genin, were awake and springing into action. Most of them opted to head for where Tsunade and Kakashi were battling the leaders of Akatsuki. As they neared the remains of the wall, they began to see just how epic this battle was really becoming. The large group of young ninja finally came upon a horrific scene of battle, the sight of which would make most Jounin gag. Two dead bodies were burnt horribly, and they were impaled by many tree limbs in a vast array of areas. It was impossible to make out whether they were male or female, let alone who they were. Their answer came quickly, though, as Tsunade and Kakshi, who looked like they jumped into a vat of Ketchup, then through around thirteen fire hoops, before taking a TiVo (plugged in) and jumping into a pool, appeared on the scene. Second later, the jumped back, as five Peins leapt out of the treeline, followed by Itachi.

Tsunade noticed the newcomers, and her heart sank. She couldn't let them watch this, or let Pein or Itachi get at them, they'd stand no chance. Even Neji, a jounin, would be little match for Itachi, and right now Itachi was at nearly full strength and had five Peins to back him up. She yelled out to them, as Kakashi covered her, "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. NO KONOHA NINJA ARE TO COME NEAR HERE UNTIL THIS SIEGE IS OVER. Understood!?" The young ninja almost protested, but Tsunade cut them off, "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? If me and Kakashi, two of the strongest ninja in Konoha, are having trouble, what help do you think you could be!? GET OUT OF HERE OR ELSE!" Tears fell from many of the young ninja's eyes as they nodded, but right as they turned to leap away, they heard the sound of a sword slicing into a chest cavity, and slowly turned their heads around, and the sight that greeted them was truly nightmarish.

* * *

At the front gate, the waves of Akatsuki seemed to have ended, but hundreds of red-clouded black trench coats were still swarming around Konoha. Suddenly, every Konoha ninja stopped cold, as did all of the Akatsuki, as a fierce surge of Chakra, the likes of which only a few could recognize, but none could compare anything to, flooded the village, and a killer intent fiercer than the Kyuubi's itself crippled anyone who it struck. All of the ninja at the front gate started at each other, and came to a silent agreement, there was no use fighting any longer, whoever _that_ is with, wins.

* * *

Well, everything I have been planning is about to come to fruition, so expect the next chapter to be chock full of combat. Hope to make it longer than 2,000 words, too, but, can't be sure. Hope to update it soon, but I want to give you guys some time to wait and think about what might happen :D

Don't forget to vote on the poll! (Chapter 7)

~Darth


	9. Author Notice

**Poll Results So Far**

Okay, here are the totals:

Ayame 1

Hinata 1

Sakura 2

Ino 0/2

Tenten 0

Shizune 0

Sasame 1

Isaribi 1

Shion 1

Now then, I can either wait for a lot more reviews (kinda need one girl to have 5+ to consider it fair), or, my preferred method, just make it a harem and you put which girls you want in it in the reviews.

Now then, I would also like to say that I will be planning a sequel for this, depending on how this turns out (mostly depending on how popular it is and if I think the sequel I have in mind really works with this story).

And, some random review answers now:

Faroush- I'm trying not to rush this either, but I know how aggravating it is to get to a good part in a story and it never gets updated, or it dies altogether. I have been thinking up the ideas I'm using in this story for probably close to six months now, I am just now putting them together in the formatting of a story, though.

Fallen-Ryu (because I still have no clue how the PM system works anymore on , do I have to respond via email?)- You're correct in that the fox cloak hurts people who touch it when the Kyuubi is in control, but when Naruto is in control it really just protects Naruto and increases his power at the cost of safety. Either way, at this point it really doesn't matter.

Don't worry, I'll be working on Chapter 9 today too.


	10. 9: The War Begins

**Chapter Nine:** The War Begins

* * *

The group of Konoha's new ninja, consisting of the past few years' academy graduates along with the rookie nine (minus Naruto, plus Team Gai), looked on in horror as one of Pein's bodies had a sword extending from its hand, and that sword had impaled Naruto through the chest, stopping inches from Tsunade's own chest. Konohamaru ran forward, tears streaming down his eyes, and Hinata came quickly afterward.

"Naruto-nii-chan! Don't die! You can't die, you're the strongest person in the world!" Konohamaru lightly pounded on Naruto's shoulder, trying to stifle his crying.

Hinata just looked at Naruto, tears welling up, her heart in the process of breaking, "Naruto-kun…"

In the blink of an eye, Naruto pushed them away, and another sword impaled him as he blocked Pein's aim once again, this time defending Konohamaru and Hinata. All of Konoha's ninja looked on even more terrified, as blood covered most of Naruto's clothes, and more flowed out of his mouth, coating his chin and neck.

Somehow, Naruto managed to yell at them, "GET OUT OF HERE. All of you," he motioned to Tsunade and Kakashi as he said that, "I can take these guys on my own, just get back to the village and stop the rest of Akatsuki, and send Sasuke, I'll try to save Itachi for him."

Tsunade wouldn't have it, "Are you insane!? You have two swords in your chest and you're bleeding liters of blood every second, you'll be child's play for them!"

Naruto growled in response, and fifteen new Naruto's popped into existence, each one picking up two comrades, although two of them had to use both arms for Kakashi and Tsunade, and leaping away, ending any attempts at knocking sense into Naruto.

Naruto turned back to Pein and Itachi, and grunted as he pushed the two swords out of his chest. To Pein's satisfaction, the wounds began to heal, although slower than he had thought they would. He smirked as he addressed Naruto, "So, you do still have the nine-tails inside you. Good, then the rumors of the Kyuubi having died are false."

"Wrong again, Pein." Naruto spat, "The Kyuubi is dead and gone, and so are all the other Bijuu, the spirits you captured should be worthless at this point. The only reason I can heal is because some of the Kyuubi's chakra still resides in me, and it can regenerate itself to a certain degree, not enough to really help me in a fight, but it can heal me just like it always has, just slower than the Kyuubi did. That should be more than enough, though, to take you out."

"Stop trying to bluff your way out of this, vessel. Your ludicrous stories are beginning to get on my nerves." Pein's voice, for once, showed emotion. Itachi flinched at the malice that had been accumulating in Pein's voice during his last statement.

"You never were one to listen, Pein. Fine then, believe me or not, but regardless of what happens here today your plans are over. I dare you to try to use the power of a Bijuu right here, right now." Naruto smirked as he challenged Pein.

Pein only frowned, before biting his thumb and going through the handseals for an obscure Summoning Jutsu. "Inanimate Summoning Jutsu!" He slammed his palm onto the ground, and the all too familiar sequence of kanji flowed from his hand, forming the required sequence and shape to summon. The giant statue began to form, just as it had the last time Naruto and Pein fought. Pein's five bodies and Itachi jumped up onto the still-rising statue's platforms, and began their plan. Naruto didn't bother to try to stop them, he wanted Pein to realize for himself that his plans were now worthless.

It didn't take long for Pein and Itachi to notice that something wasn't right, and Pein growled in frustration, before punching the statue's great face. The statue shattered instantly, and Itachi and Pein jumped down, as the statue began to sink back into the earth. Pein howled in anger, and screamed at Naruto, "Damn you! Do you have any idea what you have done?! That was the only hope we had of ending war and fighting in this world once and for all!"

"You mean to tell me that you planned to stop violence in the world, by capturing the nine spirits of the Bijuu, and using that power to make people cower in fear?" Naruto questioned in a slightly mocking tone.

"You ninja are all alike, none of you can understand the world as it is. The only way to stop violence is to show the world that you can be more violent than they can. But since you just keep insisting on ruining my plans, so be it. I'll take away everything you hold dear!" Pein yelled out the last part, before he (his main body) was surrounded by his four other bodies, and they began to glow a bright white. The lights seemed to fuse, and then the bodies surrounding Pein began to spin around him. The Pein Rocket began to levitate, before shooting up into the sky, knocking Itachi and Naruto backward and through several trees. This volent action knocked Itachi unconscious after all the fighting he had gone through with Tsunade and Kakashi.

Naruto, however, remained conscious, and saw Pein's rocket gaining altitude steadily. After several minutes, though, the rocket began to arc, and Naruto realized it was starting to descend. He leapt into action, and used his immense speed to arrive back in the village in mere seconds. He wasted no time in creating an army of Shadow Clones, which he instructed to find any villagers or ninja still in the village and evacuate them, immediately. It took almost ten minutes, but the sheer mass of clones managed to find all the shinobi and civilans of Konoha and get them outside the remains of the walls of Konoha. Naruto then performed a jutsu he had never shown anyone before, he made a barrier.

* * *

As Konoha's population began to struggle in the hands of the Naruto clones, everyone ceased moving as a giant blue barrier began to form a bubble over Konoha. As they watched the bubble forming and getting closer to finishing the dome overtop of Konoha, the Konoha inhabitants finally saw the giant white rocket that was Pein. As Akatsuki's remaining foot soldiers looked on, some of the higher ranking ones realized that their leader was sacrificing his self, and quickly relayed the information to the rest of his comrades. As the news spread, Akatsuki's morale evaporated, and the cloaked nukenin began a hasty retreat. Konoha's population paid them no attention, as they watched as Naruto's clones began to climb the barrier Naruto was creating. Several Hyuuga activated their Byakugans all around the barrier, scouring the area for the real Naruto. They finally found him, standing atop the Fourth Hokage's rock head, and the Hyuuga who were watching all gasped in awe and fear at what he was forming in his hands.

* * *

Naruto's army of clones had finally managed to all get onto the barrier, and each began to form its own Rasengan. The ones near the back began to climb onto others, and the sheet of clones began to form a dense cylinder, leaving an area about the size of Pein's rocket in the center, right over the Hokage Monument, where the real Naruto was standing. Naruto pulled open his barrier, and leapt up into the sky, before reforming the opened area. He landed in the center of the open area, right as the highest Narutos began slamming Rasengans into Pein's rocket. Naruto growled in frustration as the Rasengan's were being repelled, and then dispelling themselves and their clones. He groaned from strain, as he hoisted his own Rasengan over his head, and began to disperse his clones as soon as they contacted Pein with their Rasengan.

* * *

The Hyuuga watched in awe, relaying what they saw happening to their confused comrades, "He's formed a giant Rasengan, and I'd dare say its nearly the size of the Fourth's head. Now he's collecting the chakra that is dissipating from the failed Rasengans and pulling it into his own Rasengan!"

What happened next, though, shocked and scared every Hyuuga that had their Byakugan active, including Hanabi and Hinata. "H-he's opened the Gates! One…Two…Three…Five…Six…Seven! He has Seven of the Celestial Gates opened!" The population of ninja stood, watching in awe and horror, mouths agape as the winds began to pick up and swirl around the dense mass of chakra that stood atop the barrier. The words Hinata spoke next tore Tsunade's heart apart.

"H-he-he's pulling chakra out of his muscles to increase the size of his Rasengan! No! He's pulling even more from his heart and vital organs… And now from every cell in his body… Good God… He's taking every last ounce of chakra he has to power up his Rasengan!"

This confused most of the younger (aka non-ANBU or Jounin) ninja, and it was evident. Tsunade let tears fall as she sighed and began to explain, "People have two sets of chakra, one set, the set that ninja use in order to perform jutsu, is the surplus that we don't need in day to day life to move and survive. However, the other set, is the set that sustains our bodies and keeps us alive. The second set is normally never needed for ninja, and most can't even access it if they wanted to. This is a good thing, because what Naruto is doing right now… Is certain death…"


	11. 10: Death Approaches

**Chapter Ten:** Death Approaches

The spinning white rocket had finally passed all the Naruto clones, and was now barreling down on the original Naruto. The Hyuuga watched in horror as Naruto finished pulling chakra out of his body at the same instant Pein impacted his super rasengan. A blinding flash encompassed the surrounding area, and the sheer amount of flaring chakra blinded the Hyuuga and knocked their Byakugans off. The Konoha population had to cover their eyes and/or turn away to retain their eyesight. Several minutes passed and the flash only barely dimmed.

* * *

A long distance away, a shinobi captain signaled for his men to move, "There's the signal. MOVE OUT!" A large force of Iwa ninja disappeared just as the blinding white flash ended.

* * *

The flash finally subsided, and Tsunade turned to Hinata, who nodded. She tried to reactivate her Byakugan, but crippled over in pain, as she deactivated her Byakugan. Tsunade ran over to her, and began analyzing her eyes. She sighed in relief, as there was no real damage, but tried to shake Hinata awake. It took several minutes, and several water jutsu, but Hinata finally woke up. Tsunade tried to question her about what happened, and if she saw anything.

"I-I…I wasn't able to see anything… There is so much chakra residue, invisible to the normal eye, but highly painful to the Byakugan eye. It shines just as bright as that flash earlier. I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama…" Hinata's weak reply stunned Konoha's population once again, as the other Hyuuga had reported similar problems.

Tsunade just looked on at the falling body that fell through the shattering barrier, "_Please be okay, Naruto…"_

_

* * *

_

Naruto jumped up as Pein neared with his white rocket of chakra, feeling the immense pain and strain from having seven of the gates open along with no chakra to support his body. He had to move on pure willpower alone. He cried out, before contacting Pein's rocket with his ultimate rasengan, "Forbidden Jutsu: Uzumaki RASENGAN!" He felt immeasurable pain for several minutes, before he finally blacked out, feeling bliss, not knowing his body was falling hundreds of feet per second toward the unforgiving ground.

A nagging thought kept stirring in Naruto's dying brain, and eventually it nagged enough to restart Naruto's body, and Naruto opened his eyes to see the ground of Konoha speeding toward him. Without even thinking, he formed a Rasengan by pulling the chakra residue from the air, and finished forming the ball of destruction just in time, as he pushed it into the ground before blacking out once more.

* * *

The evacuated Konoha population looked on in fear as the falling body escaped their line of sight, behind the buildings of Konoha that remained. Milliseconds later, a loud boom was heard, and the earth trembled. Minutes passed, and finally the people of Konoha seemed to regain their composure. The ninja population hurried back into their war-torn village, ignoring the flaming buildings and crumbling structures in favor of finding who it was that made the giant crater in the center of the village. When they arrived at the last building that survived the blast of the impact, they stood still on the edge of the deep crater. In the center was a smoldering body, coated in soot and dirt, and steaming slightly. The shinobi waited anxiously for their leader to arrive, since she had finally ran out of energy from her wounds and needed to be brought there by others.

But to their utter confusion, the body moved, evidently out of conscious life. The body rose, slowly, just as Tsunade arrived on the scene. The figure finally made it to his feet, and pulled something out of his burnt up clothing. He wrapped something around his forehead, and turned back to the Konoha ninja, showcasing his own leaf headband. The crowd would have cheered, had they not seen the grave look on his face. The man moved, slowly, up the slope of the crater, and after several minutes finally made it to Tsunade. He looked into her face, grief and frustration clearly evident, as he spoke, revealing the pained, crippled voice of Naruto, "H-Hoka..ge-sama… Th-theres… some-th-thing you… n-need… to kn-now…" Tsunade tried to use her hands to silence Naruto but it was in vain, as he struggled to take a breath in order to continue, "T-there is…a gr-oup of… Iwa ninja… on th-the ou-outskirts of… the F-Fire Cou-Country… Th-they're p-planning on… invading…" Naruto's strength seemed to have ended, as he fell to his knees and coughed up burnt blood. Tsunade wanted nothing more than to get every medic nin there and try to heal him, but she knew she'd need them for the supposed invasion.

She looked down at Naruto as he slipped out of consciousness, regret clear in her eyes as she apologized, "I'm so sorry Naruto, but I have to save our medics for the invasion…" She let tears stream out of her eyes as she turned away from her dead or dying foster grandson. She took a while to regain her composure, but once she had she addressed her soldiers, "You heard him… We will not let his sacrifice go to vain. We will protect this village with as much courage as he has just now. Sakura, you stay here with Naruto, try to sustain him for as long as possible, if he's even still alive…" Tsunade began to choke up again as she said the last part, but managed to keep herself together, "Kakashi, you take up command of ANBU again, the rest of you are with me. All academy graduates from this year, and any of you who are still in the academy are to get the civilian population into the shelters. Dismissed."

Kakashi and his ANBU were gone the instant Tsunade had finished, while the academy graduates and students began to make their way back to the edge of the village. Tsunade and her group stayed where they were, as Tsunade gave her orders. "Hyuuga and attack-types, front line. Long range support-types, take up the Hokage Monument and provide cover and support, via projectiles or jutsu. Mid range-types, go with Shizune, I will be among the front line. I will hear nothing of me not risking my own life." She gave the councilers who were about to speak up no room for questioning with her last order. Shizune, however, wasn't detered, but Tsunade cut her off, "I'm going to take a few soldier and plasma pills, so don't even start, Shizune." Her group nodded in understanding, and the mid and long range groups went their own ways, Shizune leading the mid group, and Tenten leading the long range group. Tsunade and the close range fighters, consisting majorly of Hyuuga, mobilized, heading for the front gate.

Sakura sat next to Naruto, constantly streaming chakra into his heart and brain, using everything she had to keep him alive. "_Naruto… You've done so much for me, for us. I know it's not much, but I'll do my best now to keep you alive, just as you did for me all those times…" _Sakura ended her reminiscent thoughts as she felt Naruto's condition change, she focused more on him and brought him back to stable (well, stable after all things considered). She continued streaming her chakra into Naruto for quite a long time, every so often picking up the sounds of battle from far off. She had already popped two soldier pills, and only had three left. She decided that she needed to patch herself up a little bit to avoid wasting any plasma pills on herself. She turned away from Naruto in order to analyze herself with more ease. After a few minutes of patchwork, mostly consisting of healing minor nicks and cuts, she turned back around, to find that Naruto was gone, leaving only a heap of ashes behind.

* * *

On the front lines, Iwa was taking heavy casualties at the uncharacteristic ferocity of the Hyuuga, as well as the insane anger Tsunade was showcasing. The ANBU weren't making things any easier on them, as even Kakashi seemed to be fueled by rage and pain, and in many cases combined the Chidori and Rasengan into one attack, which resulted in almost fifty deaths per use. Shizune and her mid range fighters, on the other hand, were having some difficulty. It appeared that Iwa had a lot of long and close range fighters, but less mid range fighters. Unfortunately, the long range fighters of Konoha were completely distracted by Iwa's, while the long range and mid range fighters of Iwa were able to go at Konoha's mid range fighters. Shizune herself was fairing pretty well, but many of Konoha's mid range fighters weren't suited to solely mid range fighting, as opposed to combined middle and close range fighting. Iwa's skilled mid range fighters were taking full advantage of this, and wreaking havoc on Konoha with it.

As the battle continued, both armies detected several seperate sets of large chakra sources, closing in on them from many directions. The battle slowed and finally came to a halt, as the two armies prepared themselves for the worst. Several tense minutes went by, before an Iwa captain was encased in sand and crushed to death, his blod pooling at the bottom of the sandy coffin. Seconds later, a strangely colored kunai screamed through the battlefield, ripping through several Iwa troops before embedding itself in a rock, after penetrating four trees and three other rocks. The Iwa soldiers looked around frantically, as more of their troops were taken out from afar by sand and strange kunai. They finally got enough sense to split apart, and this action finally brought their new opponents out of hiding.

Gaara and his siblings appeared next to Tsunade. The four spoke no words, but a silent _"Thank you" _from Tsunade and three silent _"No problem."_ 's from the Sand Siblings went around, before another group showed their faces, each sporting slashed Sound headbands. Tsunade and the Konoha ninja were put back on their guard, as they stared curiously at the new faces. The girl in the group smiled brightly, before she and her two male comrades leapt into the center of the frenzying Iwa nin, slashing and stabbing away at them. Konoha eased up slightly, before preparing to get back into the fray, only just realizing that the Sand Siblings had beaten them to it. This show of confidence and courage sparked a huge morale boost in Konoha's ninja, and they reinitialized the fight with a renewed vigor.

The tide of the battle began to shift with the new allies Konoha had received, and after almost two hours of this fighting, Iwa's forces had been cut in half twice. The battle was beginning to look like a great victory for Konoha, but that was when everything changed for the worse, when two more large groups were sensed, and this time, Iwa's forces weren't scared, in fact, they looked overjoyed at the feeling of the new chakra sources.

Konoha's forces retreated a small distance, as two groups of shinobi leapt to Iwa's aid, one group bearing the symbol of Komogakure, and the other bearing the mark of the late Otogakure.

* * *

Sorry for the slow update, haven't been feeling very good the past few days, so I haven't really had a chance to get back to this, and I didn't want to release the part of this chapter that I already had written, since I felt it wasn't finished enough and I didn't want to feel like I let something half assed get into my story. Well, hope to update again soon, until then, you figure out how long Naruto's ashes will stay in Konoha.


	12. 11: Secrets Revealed

**Chapter Eleven:** Secrets Revealed

* * *

Tsunade growled at the newcomers, "_Kumogakure, Iwagakure, and the remnants of Otogakure are all in on this with Akatsuki?! Shit! There's little to no hope of us winning after the first siege!_" Tsunade's troops seemed to have come to similar conclusions, but in true Konoha fashion, none of them were going to let this deter them from protecting their home and their loved ones. Plus, they had to make it up to Naruto in any way they can, and they were pretty sure that ensuring he had a home to come back to, should he survive, was definitely something worth doing.

Tsunade sighed as she collected her thoughts and calmed her emotions, "Everyone! We are now vastly outnumbered. Continue fighting, but be much more defensive and cautious! Do NOT throw your lives away uselessly!" Her ninja all nodded in understanding, and the outnumbered army leapt into action, as did the three allied enemies.

The war heated up quickly, and Konoha was faring pretty well, all things considered. But, even with Konoha's skill and determination, in war, numbers often mean advantages, and that was especially true in this case. Konoha's casualties were rising steadily, and although the Alliance of enemies they were facing were taking far more casualties, they also had many times the number of shinobi to lose. Tsunade retreated from the fight she had just finished with a Iwa Chuunin, who now had a large dent where his face had been previously, and signaled for her long-range fighters to get closer and start using both long and medium range attacks.

The long range fighters complied, and Konoha's efforts quickly gained momentum, and the Oto/Kumo/Iwa Alliance (I'm going to refer to this as the Alliance from now on, bear with me, as I know they're more like the Axis of WWII than the Alliance, but Alliance is more fitting in this scenario) took some heavy casualties as they tried to respond and reform to combat the new scenario they were taking on. This short burst of momentum and favorability of Konoha did not last, however, as the Alliance was, if nothing else, good at innovating and adapting, and as such, quickly turned the tide of battle back in their favor, using Konoha's new tactic against them, by distracting the ranged fighters and having close range fighters take them out with shuriken, kunai, or even taijutsu. Konoha's ranged squad was diminishing rapidly, and if it went, so did Konoha's hope for a semi-safe retreat, as the Allied longrange fighters would pick them off with ease.

Tsunade had to start contemplating a full retreat, when it happened. In a swirl of black fire, three men appeared in the center of the battlefield, and the combatants on both sides of the war leapt away out of reflex, kicking up a shroud of dust. Tsunade's heart raced until she heard Sasuke's voice, "Amaterasu!"

Tsunade glanced at her opponents, and saw an entire squad engulfed by the black flames of hell cast out by Sasuke's apparent Mongekyou Sharingan. But what happened next utterly shocked, confused, and troubled Tsunade to no end, Sasuke darted out of the smoke, a ball of swirling blue chakra in his hand, and a white ball of electricity in the other, and yelled, "Chidori!" as he plunged the crackling ball into a Iwa captain, and "Rasengan!" as he took out a small squad of Oto nin with the Fourth's most famous attack. That shocking event was dulled by another Amaterasu emerging and slamming into a Kumo platoon, which scattered to reduce casualties. The attack itself wasn't as surprising as the voice a few of Konoha's shinobi recognized: the voice of Itachi Uchiha.

Sure enough, when some of the dust had settled, Sasuke and Itachi stood on opposite sides of the semicircle-like clearing created when the armies had retreated. The two brothers looked first to each other, then to Tsunade, and finally to where they had, Tsunade thought, shunshined to, where the dust was finally settling and clearing, revealing the third figure they first saw. The figure seemed to have on an oversized trenchcoat, and a large scroll strapped to his back, as well as shoulder-length hair, but colors could not be distinguished yet from the smoke. Tsunade's mind went into overdrive for a moment, then nearly shut down, leaving one thought to ring around in her head, "_Th-the Fourth?!_" Surely enough, when the dust fully cleared, the sight that was revealed to her could only be described as a mini-Fourth Hokage, as the figure was wearing either the Fourth's cloak, or a perfect copy of it, and had blonde, spiky hair reaching just under his shoulderblades.

The scroll on his back was something Tsunade definitely recognized, the Toad scroll, and Kakashi seemed to think it was along the same lines, but Tsunade knew that the Toad scroll was Jiraiya's, and could not be passed down so quickly after the last owner had died. So what could this Summoning Scroll possibly be? Neither Kakashi nor Tsunade had an answer, so they watched, along with the rest of the shinobi present, as the figure turned and revealed to Konoha his Leaf headband, which the Alliance had already seen, for the most part.

The headband itself wasn't what brought tears to Tsunade's eyes, however. It was the man's face, the face of the Naruto she knew and loved like a brother/son. However, the eyes she saw were not the carefree, loving ones she first met, nor the pained, intelligent ones she had seen when he first returned with Sasuke. No, his eyes were the cold eyes of a warrior heading into war, eyes she had seen many times in her lifetime. Eyes she hated to see in people so young, and eyes she had hoped she would never see in Naruto.

The Alliance stood still, as the man they saw in the center of the clearing brought an intense fear and hatred back into Iwa's men, the man that had caused so much pain in their lives, and instilled so much fear into their friends, family, and comrades. The man who had cost them the Third Shinobi War, the man they believed to be the Fourth Hokage. Oto and Kumo were similar, although no nation held the deep hatred and fear of the Fourth (and, by extension (albeit more hatred than fear), Konoha), as Iwa did.

The armies tensed as the man's mouth opened, and a voice they couldn't quite place as the Fourth's emerged, "I will give you all one last chance to retreat and save your miserable lives. Decline, and I will assure you, you will all die here today, by either my or my comrades' hands. You need not give me an answer, just leave. NOW!" Iwa wasted no time, they were gone in a flash, although Kumo seemed to be still thinking it over, while some of Oto's less experienced, and less knowledgable seemed to be enraged, and in fact, several swarmed around Naruto, and seven of them leapt into the air, and before they could slash their various weapons into the man, a puff of smoke surrounded him, and a large Bear slashed two men and bit another, while a Wolf clawed one in the chest, killing him instantly, and slashed, then bit another man's face. A third animal, this one a Tiger, finished the other two with quick slashes of his claws. The crowd stood and looked on in a mix of horror, awe, and shock, as the animals poofed out of existence as fast as they had appeared, and they noticed the man hadn't moved a muscle, indicating either speed the Sharingan couldn't even register, or an outsider summoning them, but summoning from afar was unheard of, and (as far as anyone knows), impossible. This revelation rocked the Oto and Kumo shinobi enough to know it was time to retreat, and the two armies did exactly that, leaving the Konoha ninja to recover in safety.

Several tense minutes passed, before the crowd watched in horror as Naruto collapsed into a heap, and Itachi and Sasuke rushed to his side, as did Tsunade and Kakashi. Unbeknownst to Tsunade, Sakura had arrived moments before Naruto, Sasuke, and Itachi had, and hat seen the whole thing. She quickly made her way through the crowd, and to Tsunade, where she kneeled down beside Naruto as the others were. Tsunade gave her a glance of anger and disappointment, to which she returned a look of confusion, regret, and a look that asked for forgiveness. Tsunade's look returned to one of worry over Naruto, indicating she would talk to Sakura about it later.

Tsunade signaled for a medical team, and one promptly brought over a stretcher, which Naruto was gently placed onto. Konoha's gathered shinobi spread out to let the stretcher and Naruto's closest friends walk through, back toward Konoha. It took nearly twenty minutes at the groups slow pace, but they finally reached what had used to be Konoha's main gate, which they quickly moved through, winding their way through the streets of Konoha, which quickly flooded with the returning civilians and shinobi. The group moved toward the Tower, which had been converted, at least partially, into a medical center when Naruto had first returned, as Tsunade had predicted an attack from the remaining Akatsuki. The civilians moved to the side to let the group pass, and as they laid eyes on the man riding the stretcher, one emotion began to grip all of Konoha's civilians, and surprisingly, it was shared by most of the shinobi, as well.

* * *

Don't worry, the next chapter will have a lot of explanations. I don't know why, but every time I make a title to hint at what will be in the chapter, I end up saving all the things that pertain to that title for the next chapter... .

Sorry for the long update wait, I've just been going over a lot of different directions I could take this story in, and I think I've finally come to my decision. I even have a great twist planned later, to go in a direction I haven't ever seen in a Narto story before (granted, I don't look for stories that have the character I will be bringing in as a main character, so that _could_ be why, but still, save largely AU stories (aka, highschool, pokegirl, etc naruto stories), I don't think anyone has tried what I'm going to try out, so I'll see how it works out. Lemme know how I'm doing still, let me know if you notice typos or anything, I can only catch so many, you know!


	13. 12: Kyuubi Returns

**Chapter Twelve:** The Kyuubi Returns…

* * *

Naruto woke up in a makeshift hospital room, his head spinning and his entire body sore enough to have gone one on one with a steam roller… and lost. It took a while, but he finally managed to get used to the constant pain and the spinning in his head, and managed to sit up. He used his new vantage point to look around the room he was in, and he saw the sleeping forms of Sakura, Sasuke, Hinata, Tsunade, Shizune, and Iruka. He smiled to himself, and noticed his clothing hung up in the corner. His face regained its seriousness, and he picked himself up off the bed.

He stumbled his way over to his clothes, and quickly changed before anyone woke up. He moved over to the couches his friends were now using as multi-person beds, and was about to wake them up, when a horrible chakra surged over the land, paralyzing him and waking up the other occupants of the room, as well as the rest of Konoha. The six sleeping forms quickly bolted upright and analyzed their situation before they too were paralyzed by the power and killing intent that was freely flowing over the village. The three older shinobi recognized this power, as did Naruto, and Sasuke, Sakura, and Hinata vaguely recognized it as well.

In mere moments the streets of Konoha were chaos, with citizens and shinobi scrambling around in every direction imaginable (yes, some people were flying straight up at times). Eventually some order and sense came to the people, and they began to flood to the Hokage's tower to find out what they should do.

As the sounds of the pandemonium increased, the seven worn out shinobi were released from their paralyzed states. They quickly made their way to the roof of the tower (which, Naruto noticed, seemed to be a floor or two lower than he remembered), and were greeted with flooded streets of people looking up at the Hokage expectantly. The crowd quickly noticed Naruto, and some murmuring began.

For the first time in a long while, Tsunade's brain had completely shut down from confusion and shock. She stood there, looking out over her citizens, opening and closing her mouth uselessly. Naruto noticed this, and decided to save her. He moved forward, and pushed her out of the limelight. He cleared his throat, and his still-in-pain voice rang out over the village.

"Everyone! Please, quiet down. I can't pretend to understand what is happening, although I do have my ideas, but I can assure you that I was not lying when I last came here, the Kyuubi is dead, and I did not deceive you when you were allowed to glimpse my mind. I ask all of you to please head to the war shelters as quickly, quietly, and orderly as possible, and I will personally make sure that whatever this new threat is, it is defeated before it can cause any more damage to our ravaged village." Naruto's voice had steadily grown stronger during his short speech, and the crowd was moved. However, what happened next brought Naruto new levels of confusion, and brought a great sense of pride into Konoha's shinobi.

"What the hell is wrong with you Naruto!?" Came the voice of a man in the crowd.

"Yeah! Look at you! You're all beat up! You can't expect to fight in your shape!" Came another's voice.

"C'mon! Have some faith in us, would ya? Let _us_ handle this one, you go back to sleep!" Came a third voice, and this one seemed to bring smirks to the faces of everyone in the crowd.

Naruto was at a loss for words, and was about to call their bluff when the village's citizens mobilized, beginning to head for where the source of this powersurge was believed to be. Before Naruto could say anything else, four lightning bolts struck four different points outside the village, and, to everyone's surprise, they sustained themselves, and moved with what were apparently people. Naruto's brain registered a far off memory from some scroll or book he had once read, _"Limelight: A very ancient, powerful jutsu used by four of the Fire Nation's strongest shinobi. Known to be the most powerful lightning jutsu ever created, capable of destroying anything inside the circle the four shinobi create. Last known usage: over fifty years ago." _Naruto's heart nearly stopped when he had finally made a coherent thought out of the memory.

He focused chakra into his throat, and cleared it again, getting everyone's attention, even Tsunade's, "Everyone… I thank you for what you are willing to try to do, but I believe this is a little bit out of the league of non-shinobi. I have a vague idea as to what is about to happen, and I can't even do this on my own, at full power. I ask you all, again, to head to the war shelters, and I ask all shinobi of Chuunin rank or higher to meet me on this roof within the next five minutes. I do not want ANY arguing, now get moving!" Naruto's booming voice did just that, no one dared to argue, no matter how much they wanted to prove themselves to the boy they had wronged all their lives.

Five minutes passed, and most of the citizen population had made it to the shelters, while all the shinobi he had called for had indeed met him on the roof. Naruto had been keeping his eye on the four moving lightning bolts, and noticed that two of them had stopped moving, completely across the village from each other. One of the other ones was moving through the village, toward the Tower, while the other was still moving toward what used to be the main gate of Konoha. He surmised that he had about three minutes until the preparations were in place… He had to move quickly.

"Okay everyone, here's the deal. Those four lightning bolts are trying to surround the village roughly evenly. If they manage to do so, Konoha will be gone, forever. We need four squads to mobilize and deal with these shinobi. It matters not who goes where, just that at least one of the teams manages to defeat their assigned opponent. I suspect that this is all just a hopeful diversion, and that the power we feel off in the distance is the real attack. Do not tread lightly, however, as this 'diversion' is still very dangerous. I am assigning Team Gai along with Itachi to head west. I want Teams 8 and 7, minus myself, to head east. Team Asuma, along with Tsunade, you are to wait for the southbound lightning bolt. ANBU will head North to cut off the fourth. I will take out the primary attack source, understood?"

A chorus of "Hai!" reverberated through the tower, and the tower shuddered as the shinobi on the roof leapt off as fast as possible, simultaneously. That left only Naruto on the battered Hokage Tower. He gave one last grim look around the village, before he shunshin'd away, past the Main Gate, and part-way into the forest surrounding the village. He stood still for a moment, and scanned the area for the chakra source. It took a little while, but he finally managed to pinpoint the location. He wasted no time, and double-timed it to a clearing he estimated at two and a half kilometers away.

* * *

Team Gai moved in to position first, and were met with the grim site of a waiting revived corpse. The revived shinobi looked over at the five assembled shinobi, and smirked. Another lightning bolt struck off in the distance, and the six combatants disappeared in the blink of an eye. A loud clang could be heard, and in a moment the six shinobi reappeared, five of them trying to slash the sixth from any number of ways, but lightning bolt blades seemed to emanate from the sixth's body, blocking each and every blow, and then electrocuting the assailants. The five teammates poofed out of existence, and five logs fell to the ground, burnt to a crisp.

The five Konoha ninja regrouped, and a silent conversation went down in an instant, and everyone seemed to have figured out that that must have been this revived man's main ability. Itachi was the first to actually speak, "This will not be easy, but I think I have a plan, or at least an idea. I need you four to distract him long enough for me to get enough energy into my Mangekyou Sharingan to use Amaterasu. I doubt his lightning defense can stop the flames of hell, but when I give you the signal, you HAVE to get out of the way, as I won't be able to call off the flames from the original target. If you're close enough to him, you could be badly burnt, or even consumed by the fire itself. You guys can do whatever you feel is necessary to distract him, but I think Tenten might be the best for this role." Team Gai thought it over for a few seconds before they agreed, silently. Gai and Lee activated three gates each, while Neji activated his Byakugan, and Tenten pulled out two slightly oversized scrolls.

The four man cell leapt away from Itachi, who had his eyes closed, obviously concentrating. He took several seconds to concentrate, before he managed to succeed in his first stage of the plan, "Mangekyou Sharingan!" escaped his lips, before his mouth and eyes closed once again, and his face contorted once again in the strains of concentration.

* * *

Team Gai reemerged to show themselves to their silent opponent. Lee and Gai immediately charged the ma-, strike that, zombie. The two twins sped out of sight of the naked human eye, and a second later two punches connected with the reanimated corpse. The man was sent flying backwards, and it took several seconds for him to reemerge and retake his position of defensive waiting. Lee and Gai reappeared, obviously frustrated. Apparently, they also had burnt hands, as they were both rubbing them subconsciously. Neji took this as his sign to try, and ran forward, Byakugan blazing, and Jyuuken posed to strike.

Neji's mouth opened and a few barely-audible words escaped his mouth as he neared his opponent, "Eight Trigrams: One-Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms!" He finished his jutsu's name as he reached his opponent and used his momentum to quickly deliver the first few stages of the attack, "Two Palm! Four Palm! Eight Palm! Sixteen Palm!" Neji's hands blurred out of vision nearing his sixteen palm strike, "Thirty-Two Palm!" Neji began to move his body to increase the speed of his blows, "Sixty-Four Palm!" Neji's voice began to strain from the pain and stress of this continued motion, "One-Hundred Twenty-Eight Palm!" Neji's entire body was blurry as he struck all of the dead man's Tenketsu (Chakra Points, right?) in a mere second. Neji finished his strike and leapt back out of sight with the last of his momentum. The man he hit staggered a bit, and some black fluid escaped his lips, but he quickly regained his composure, and stood at the ready once again.

Team Gai let their mouths fall open slightly, amazed at how little Neji's most powerful attack had done. Neji promptly let his Byakugan fade and fell to one knee, clearly having used up a bit too much chakra. Tenten grimaced, and brought her two scrolls into view, stretching her arms out straight in front of her, before she grabbed a small string between two fingers on either hand, and let the scrolls unravel as she brought her hands up in an arc over her head. She slowly began to spin, before she jumped up into the air, and increased her speed to keep her aloft. She finally smeared a small amount of blood onto each of her strange scrolls, before calling out, "Sharpened Hailstorm!" A truly scary number of blades shot out of her scrolls, ranging in size from Senbon needles to thirty-pound two-hand swords. Team Gai watched in amazement as Tenten fell down between her two still spinning, still spitting scrolls. As the first of the blades reached the resurrected shinobi, his lightning defense picked up, and the group was quickly blinded by the sheer number of lightning bolts emanating from him. The group's hearts fell even more as they heard the blades being deflected. Several seconds passed before the light faded and they were able to get a glimpse of what remained. Tenten growled in frustration as only fourteen of her blades, mostly senbon at that, had managed to embed themselves in the man's skin. She was, however, slightly more satisfied at how almost thirty more had apparently grazed the man's skin, leaving deep cuts all over his body.

The man lost his smirk, and began a series of handsigns, before calling out, "Forbidden Jutsu: Limelight 2!" Team Gai was completely confused, and had feared that the other three had gotten into position, but to their horror, a highly focused bolt of lightning began to form on the man's chest, and immediately shot out at Tenten, who had no way to dodge or defend herself, as she was caught up in the dangerous electricity. After several seconds, a poof was heard, and a log was seen smashing into another tree. Team Gai's spirits rose, as they hoped that Tenten was perfectly fine, but Tenten appeared seconds later in midair, before falling to the ground, unconscious. Gai looked on fearfully as most of Tenten's exposed skin had been burnt to a crisp, while most of her clothing seemed to be burned as well. A glint caught everyone's eye, as a lone kunai shot out at their opponent. Gai quickly took action, as he scooped up Tenten, and motioned for Lee to grab Neji. Lee complied and they quickly leapt away. Seconds later, the slightly confused zombie heard, "Amaterasu!" and looked toward where the kunai had been sent from, only to see black flames consuming him as he melted back into the ground.

* * *

Team 7 and Team 8 emerged in a clearing just east of the Konoha Wall. There stood a strange man who neither Kakashi nor Kurenai could identify, other than the fact that he seemed to be a revived corpse. Hinata wasted no time in activating her Byakugan, while Sasuke activated his Sharingan. Kiba and Akamaru could be heard sniffing around, and Kiba quickly made a report, "No other scents nearby. Low chance of this being a bunshin or something, little no to chance of backup arriving to assist him." Kurenai and Kakashi nodded.

Shino then made his own report, "I don't think my bugs would be willing to attack this man, as they are not fond of eating decayed flesh like this. I may be able to summon up some insects that are willing to do so, but do not count on it. I am afraid I may not be much assistance for this battle." Kurenai and Kakashi were slightly confused at this, but they figured Shino knew far, far, FAR more about bugs than they did, so they let it go.

Sakura then decided to pitch in, "If his body really is decayed then I should be able to just punch him into oblivion, right?"

Sakura seemed to be unsure, and Kakashi decided that she may be right to be cuatious, "Perhaps, but we can't be sure that this man is really as brittle as we believe. Best to hold off on that until we figure out of he has some sort of defensive jutsu that could cause you difficulty. For right now, I want you to stay back and be prepared to heal anyone that gets injured." Sakura nodded, and Kakashi turned to Kurenai and Hinata, "Are the two of you any good at combined distractive Genjutsu?" He received a nod, a surprisingly confident one from Hinata, he noted, "Alright then, could you try to set up a disorientating one so that me and Sasuke, and maybe Kiba if Chidori doesn't work, can start to assault him to probe for defenses and weaknesses?" Another nod. "Alright, then, Sasuke, let's go!" Sasuke nodded, and the two leapt off as soon as Hinata and Kurenai had stopped forming hand seals and chanting softly. Sasuke threw a series of kunai around their silent corpse-like opponent. He then pulled on strings he had had attached and bound the man to a tree trunk. He blurred through some hand seals before calling out his jutsu.

"Fire Style: Dragonfire Jutsu!" true to the jutsu's name, Sasuke seemed to breathe fire, as the strings were quickly engulfed and the man was quickly shrouded by the raging flames. Sasuke smirked, "That was just too ea-" before he could finish, electicity seemingly came out of nowhere, severing all the wires and letting the flaming cord fall to the ground, revealing a barely harmed zombie. Sasuke grimaced, before more of the airborne electricity formed, and quickly shocked Sasuke, who let out a yelp of pain. Sakura ran over to Sasuke and began to heal his burnt skin. Kakashi grunted in annoyance, and motioned for Kiba to come over. Kiba and Akamaru nodded (well, Akamaru barked), and Kiba got down on all fours, and Akamaru proceeded to jump onto Kiba's back, "Beast Mimickry: Man-Beast Clones!" Kiba's slightly feral voice could be heard before a poof of smoke covered Akamaru and Kiba, and when it cleared there were two Kibas standing next to each other, smirking.

Kakashi smiled to Kiba, and nodded for him to proceed while he began to go through some hand seals. Kiba nodded back, and he and Akamaru got down on all fours again before Kiba yelled, "Fang Over Fang!" Kiba and Akamaru disappeared to give way to two swirling masses of angry, claw-bearing dog. The canine hurricane slammed into the revived Fire Nation fighter, and they seemed to have more success than Sasuke. They slammed into his side and took off the man's arms. Kakashi smirked, as he began to charge the man. He got close and leapt up into the air, "Chidori!"

Kakashi plunged his lightning-ball fist into the corpse's chest, and lightning surged around Kakashi's body, about to strike him down, but the Chidori seemed to have worked, and the man's body began to crumble. The electricity that was forming around Kakashi faded slowly dissipated as the man's body broke down and crumbled back into dust. Kakashi smirked in success, as Kurenai and Hinata released their Genjutsu.

* * *

The squad of ANBU had finally arrived at the Northern spot just as the fourth lightning bolt had, but right as the ANBU were getting ready to leap into combat, the man wobbled, fell to his hands and knees, and then melted back into the ground. The ANBU looked around confused for a few moments, before realization dawned on them, and the ANBU Captain spoke up, "Ah, one of the other teams must have beaten their opponent. Like Naruto-sama said, it didn't matter who beat their opponent first, just that someone did. It looks like we're not needed here anymore, lets move on and try to assist Naruto-sama." The captain got nods and agreements from his squad and they proceeded to leap out of sight once again.

* * *

Team Asuma along with Tsunade finally saw their assigned opponent come around a corning and into sight. Tsunade wasted no time, and she jumped high up into the air, before concentrating a good deal of her Chakra into her fist, and she collided with a melting corpse, much to her surprise. She couldn't pull back her chakra fast enough, and her fist collided with the ground, leaving a very large crater nearly the size of the one Naruto had created upon his impact merely hours before. Tsunade stood back up and dusted herself off, before looking over toward Team Asuma, who seemed to be confused as well. It seemed to dawn on Shikamaru first what had happened, "I think that means that one of the other teams beat their guy first, so that meant either the other guys were defeated too automatically, or, more likely, whoever resurrected these guys released the jutsu."

The other four thought this over and seemed to agree, but this led Ino to a new question, "Well, what now? Do we go back to the Hospital and help all the injured Jounin and Chuunin, or go help Naruto?"

Shikamaru thought it over for a while, and came up with another answer, "It'd probably take us too long to catch up with Naruto, we might as well try to help others heal up, right Tsunade-sama?" Tsunade merely nodded, and the group set off for the Konoha hospital.

* * *

Naruto finally reached the site of the large chakra surge that woke up Konoha. He came upon an old man who wielded a staff and a young boy, probably around Naruto's age, who had a red cloak and three tails formed around him. He looked at the boy's face, and gasped in surprise.

"Sora!?"


	14. 13: Konoha Demon Reborn

**Chapter Thirteen:** Konoha Demon Reborn…

* * *

"N**a**r**ut**o?" Sora's voice crackled with strain and seemed to flicker between human and demonic, indicating some sort of a struggle.

"What are you doing Sora?! I thought we worked on this last year!?" Came Naruto's confused, worry-laden voice.

"**I**-I **kn**ow… T**hi**s **bast**ard… **p**ut… s**ome k**in**d**… o**f a**… se**al**… o**n my**… s**t**o**mach**… a**nd no**w I… c**an't**… re**gain**… full **con**…**trol**…" Sora's voice indicated an intensifying in the struggle, and his shirt burned away from the power of the evil chakra. The shirt exposed a bloody, burnt torso with a sloppy seal taking up a large portion of Sora's stomach. The seal would occasionally pulse red or blue, sometimes a dark purple.

Naruto turned his attention to the old man, and his sensitive nose picked up a similiarity in the scents of the two people in front of him. Naruto's eyes opened wide as realization dawned on him, "You… You heartless ass hole! You put this burden on your own son!? You're despicable!" Naruto finished his tyrade with a vigorous punch at the old man's face, but the man's staff moved to intercept it, and the punch was brushed off like a fly.

The man let out a hearty laugh, "Ha-ha-ha! What's it to you!? I mean, it's not like you care! Sora's a monster, why don't you get out of here while you still can?"

Naruto let out his own laugh, but his was solemn and hid a tone of mocking, "How dare you call him a monster! He's more of a person than you'll ever be! You're no better than the people you're trying to kill were! Why can't any of you damned adults practice that which is the most fundamental of all shinobi arts: looking underneath the underneath?!"

The old man seemed to have come to a realization of sorts, "You talk as if you understand wh-" He was cut off by a large flare of Kyuubi chakra accompanied by an agonized scream from Sora, "what Sora is going through. Tell me, boy, why must you insult Sora's sacrifice?!"

Naruto growled angrily, "Insult!? I know damn well what he's going through! I've had to bear the very same sacrifice and burden he has! How dare you act and talk all high and mighty like you have a valid reason for your actions!"

The old man's eyes widened a bit, but he quickly regained his composure, "Tell me, boy, what is your name…?"

Naruto seemed to be caught off guard by this question, "Wha-… My name? My name's Naruto… Naruto Uzumaki…" Naruto answered slowly.

The old man let out a crazed laugh, and his voice rang out with a renewed vigor, "Hahaha! Oh the Irony! What are the chances that the other kid whose father sealed the Kyuubi into is the one to come and try to stop us?!"

Naruto was visibly confused, "What are you talking about? My dad died early on in the Kyubi attack, and then the fourth sealed the Kyuubi into me when the time came…" Naruto's voice betrayed his uncertainty and confusion.

The old man's senile laugh returned, "You young fool! You actually believe all that crap Konoha fed you!? No, boy, Minato Namikaze, a.k.a. the Fourth Hokage, was your father!" Naruto stiffened and his mind raced, little did the three shinobi know, a group of ANBU had just reached the perimeter of the clearing and heard the last of the old man's speech.

Just as the ANBU were about to mobilize, Asuma shot out of the treeline, barreling down on the old man and yelling, "Kazuma!" The old man quickly spun around and blocked both of Asuma's wind chakra-infused blades with his staff.

"Ah, Asuma, long time no see, eh? I see you're still on the other King's side, no?" Came Kazuma's reminiscent retort.

The two old men exchanged a series of blocked blows before leaping away and back toward the treeline where Asuma appeared from, as a rather violent surge of Kyuubi chakra flew off Sora, forcing the ANBU to retreat as well, and burning Naruto's skin before blasting him backwards. Naruto staggered to his feet after laying in a smoldering indent in the ground for several minutes, revealing to the ANBU that several of his partially-healed wounds from the day's earlier battles had reopened, and his blood freely flowed down his torso to soak his remaining clothes. Naruto hung his head, hiding his face from everyone's eyes, and began walking up to Sora. As he got closer, he began to speak, "Sora… I know how much you've gone through, all at the hands of your own father. I can' go back in time to fix your childhood, but…" Naruto had reached Sora and stopped within arm's length of the struggling teen, "maybe I can save what's left of your life… by taking your burden as my own once again." Several more ANBU squads had arrived to hear Naruto's offer, and Kazuma and Asuma stopped their taijutsu battle in favor of watching what was unfolding between the two Kyuubi Jinchuuriki.

Naruto spoke no more, but went through a series of hand seals calmly, but quickly. The sequence was rather short, as far as most of Naruto's jutsu went, and Naruto promptly thrust out both arms as soon as he had finished and gripped Sora's shoulders, Tsunade's necklace dangling between them, hanging right in front of Sora's heart. "I was afraid it would come to this, but I'm glad Kyuubi taught me this after we parted ways; Demonic Ninja Art: Sacrificial Resealing!" Naruto tightened his grip as Tsunade's necklace glowed brightly, and the Kyuubi's chakra began to swell around Naruto's hands, burning away even more skin. The necklace's bright, pure, green glow began to change into a sinister red. The Kyuubi's chakra began to flow away from Sora, forming a large dome of spirals that surrounded the both of them, with a rather large margin. The dome swirled continuously, and a giant fox head formed at the top. After several pulses of chakra were sent off from the dome, the dome began to slow down in its swirling movement, and it began to shrink down in size, seemingly centering around Naruto. After several seconds the dome shrouded only Naruto, and the fox head began to yell in pain and rage. The strands of demonic chakra closed in on Naruto again and when they contacted his skin they began to coil around him like a Python.

Naruto let out a heart-wrenching scream of pain as the chakra strands seemed to be trying to squeeze the life out of his withered body, visibly pulsing in and out. The strands continued to test Naruto's willpower for several minutes before the fox head gave out another scream and flew up and then down in a giant arc, bringing the strands of chakra with it as if they were it's tails, and aimed straight for Naruto's screaming mouth. Naruto made no moves to close his mouth, as the fox head gave one final scream before flying into Naruto's mouth, and down his throat, the chakra tails following suit, and both entities burning anything they touched, which caused Naruto to scream even louder.

In an instant everything settled down, rocks began to fall back down to earth, rocks that had once been suspended in the air by the sheer power of the chakra, and Naruto was shaking violently where he stood. He swayed in either direction several times, before his mouth wrenched open in one final scream of agony, before collapsing into a heap on the ground, Sora following suit quickly afterward, his petrified body and glazed eyes reconforming to the parameters of a sleeping human body.

* * *

Disclaimer: I know that some of the events and dialogue in this chapter may resemble that of the official Naruto Manga/Anime (shippuuden). I make no claim to the originality of these dialogues, and I admit to having derived this dialogue from the official ones. I make no money or any other benefit from this story other than my own enjoyment and (hopefully) the enjoyment and entertainment of the other people who use this site. I do not own Naruto, be it the Anime (regular nor Shippuuden), or the Manga. I own only this story itself and the ideas contained herein.

~Darth


	15. 14: Exiled Reunion

**Chapter Fourteen: Reunited Exile**

* * *

Naruto could be seen thrashing around in a hospital bed, with black leather straps fiercely binding him, holding him down and preventing his escape. Sweat covered his entire body as he continued to groan and struggle, all the while unconscious. His mind was a battleground, and the stakes ranged from his mere sanity to control of his body as a whole. His groans were heard by only five kunoichi outside his hospital room, the five of which were horribly grief stricken, and every time he groaned they flinched as if they were the ones feeling the pain.

Hours of this passed, before Naruto finally awoke, with a start. He started gasping for breath, and then started struggling once more before he realized he was bound to a hospital bed. He wanted to panic, but he willed himself to calm down, and once he succeeded a decent while later, he began to meditate. He began drawing in energy from the surrounding environment, ranging from the bugs in the rooms that Tsunade refused to admit were in the hospital to the energy in the air itself. After what seemed like an eternity of concentration, a green flash could be seen, although not by those outside the room, followed by the soft, barely-audible, thuds of the leather straps falling to the ground, or rather, what was left of them.

Naruto slowly sat up in his bed, trying to maintain his consciousness and control. He took a great deal of time to swing his legs over the side of the bed, before throwing caution into the wind and hopping down, silently, onto his feet. The moment the soles of his feet hit the ground he crumpled down in pain, barely having the state of mind to keep himself silent, he had sensed the five presences of his female friends outside his room, and he didn't want to worry them, or, mostly in Sakura's case, enrage them…

Naruto managed to stand up straight, before he bit his thumb, causing blood to flow slowly from the small cut, and slowly going through the Toad Summoning sequence of hand seals. Once he finished, he knelt down and placed his open palm on the tile floor, allowing the all-too-familiar kanji to form on the tile almost instantaneously, the standard circle with extensions forming before a silent plume of smoke obscured his view of the immediate area for a few seconds, before the open window blew away the smoke, leaving the air vents to deal with it. The now clear smoke revealed a small green toad, roughly the size of Gamakichi's youthful form, although the strange toad's feet were different in that they had strange silver claws extending from his webbed toes.

"Hello there, GamaTsuchi, its been quite a long time, hasn't it?" Came Naruto's still near-silent voice.

GamaTsuchi seemed to catch on that stealth was required, and replied in his own slightly-audible whisper, "Yes, it certainly has, Naruto-sama. Is there any way I can be of service to you?"

"Now, now, GamaTsuchi, I've told you hundreds of times now, its just Naruto." Naruto's slightly playful tone seemed to put the toad at ease, assuring it that it wasn't reasons of nearby enemies that they were being so quiet. Once the toad noticed the dark sky outside, he realized that they were just being courteously quiet, as is human custom at night. Naruto decided to continue once the small toad had turned its head back from the window, "Anyway, I do need your help. I know its usually a bad idea to do this, but I need you to take this scroll," Naruto paused to take out a black sealed scroll, "to Pa. Tell him its an emergency, and that I apologize to him and Ma. Tell him to read the scroll in its entirety, and that I will be summoning him in one hour's time."

The toad nodded obediently as he accepted the strange black scroll from its master. He gave a curt nod before he poofed away to deliver the messages. Naruto crumpled back down to his knees moments after the toad left, his composure lost in the immense mental pain he was now in. "Tch… Not a moment too soon. I'm surprised I actually managed to finish the conversation." Naruto's strained voice betrayed the reigniting battle in his head. He crumpled to the floor in a heap once again, groaning loudly in agony as he fought to retain composure, sanity, and, most importantly, control.

* * *

The hour was finally up, and Naruto managed to quell his conflict long enough to regain his composure and re-perform the Summoning Jutsu, this time summoning the Toad Elder, Pa. Said elder poofed into existence, and wasted no time in whacking Naruto in the head with his staff, clearly showing his irritation. "Damnit, Naru-mmph!" Pa's loud voice was cut off just quickly enough to stop the residents outside his room from realizing they actually heard something, via Naruto's hand. Naruto put his finger to his lips and did a "shhh" motion with his mouth, and Pa nodded in confirmation. He continued, his irate state still clear, but still nearly silent, "Damnit, Naruto-chan, why the hell did you go and REabsorb the Kyuubi! You're lucky you've maintained control for this long! Hell, you're lucky you're not dead and the Kyuubi wasn't released! Damnit! You and your damn adventures, always befriending the most troublesome little…" Pa's voice trailed off as he grumbled the rest of his rant. He took a deep sigh, before giving his full attention to Naruto once again, signaling that Naruto could talk, if he had anything to say for himself.

"I know, Pa-sama, I know. Believe me, I don't like how this is turning out any more than you, I'm the one barely fighting back a pissed off, hysteric, bloodlust-crazed Bijuu in the back of my mind, remember? I just want to know if you have any way of improving or fixing the seal to make it like it was when the Kyuubi was originally sealed into me, such that he couldn't control me without my emotions triggering it." Naruto's exasperated voice turned pleading when he finished his apology.

Pa's angered face fell to a solemn one, "Kid… There's nothing I can do for ya… Having the Kyuubi leave your system has caused the original seal to fade and disintegrate, barely leaving enough of it behind to actually seal the chakra. Plus, I don't know the original seal nor how it was made, and the fact that it was performed by summoning the Shinigami makes it that much more difficult, in that I can't just restore or alter the seal, I would have to redo the entire jutsu the Fourth did, and, as much as I like you, I just can't sacrifice that much. And anyway, I don't know that justu. I'm sorry kid… But I can't really help you other than with advice and healing…"

Naruto's face fell, and the shadow of his brow covered his eyes, "I… I understand Pa-sama… Do you have any advice to offer me, then?" Naruto never looked up, he had a sneaking suspicion he knew the advice he would be offered.

Pa sighed sadly, "Yes, Naruto, I do… I advise you to leave the village once more for its own safety. I know you love your friends, and that's why I don't want you to see them get hurt by your own doing, especially if you can stop it. Maybe in time you can re-reason with the Kyuubi, or defeat it entirely, but until then, for your sanity and your friends' safety, I suggest you leave Konoha."

Naruto gave no reply, he merely nodded before he flicked Pa on the forehead, sending the sad Toad Elder back to his realm. He stiffened and stood, before revealing his chakra signature in order to hopefully suppress anyone else and deter any pursuers that might start up once he left the hospital and became visible to the masses. This startled the five kunoichi outside his room, but his chakra made it impossible for them to move. Naruto swiftly jumped out the open window and onto a nearby rooftop, breaking his hold on the kunoichi and allowing them to burst into the room to see him dart off of that roof. They quickly gave chase, even in their distraught state. Many other ninja from the slightly-repaired village joined in, but none of them could get too close, or the chakra suppression would hinder or, in most cases, prevent movement. A large gathering landed at Konoha's gate around twenty feet behind Naruto. They looked on in confusion and worry, as he turned back to them, and gave them a solemn stare as their only goodbye. As the five kunoichi attempted to run forward, a fierce blue chakra surrounded Naruto, and members of the Hyuuga family noticed a rather prominent purple tinge starting to grow, before he was gone. No trace of movement, no one could track him, he was just gone. The only indication that he had ever actually moved were the blown down trees outside Konoha's gate, hundreds of trees blown down on either side of the main road. The trees had been felled by the enormous gust of wind the more sensitive shinobi had felt the moment he vanished.

* * *

Miles away from Konoha an alarm could be heard going off from the giant village, alerting, and slightly startling, two Iwa kunoichi who had been traveling through Konoha's dense forests. The two looked off in the direction of Konoha, and shared a questioning glance. They decided to investigate, Konoha-Iwa relations be damned. They quickly took off in the direction of Konoha, taking a route through the trees that gave them a small vantage point over the main road that leaded out and away from Konoha. They were quickly closing in on Konoha's main gate when they heard a stumble-like rucus in some bushes down on the forest floor. They immediately dropped and hid.

They watched as a young boy clad in an orange jumpsuit emerged, holding his head with one hand and a kunai in the other. The two kunoichi could see that he was in some sort of pain, seemingly a migraine or something. They then noticed his headband, it held the symbol of Konoha with a large horizontal gash through it, signaling he had gone rogue from Konoha. The two kunoichi instantly tensed and became enraged. They waited for the boy to turn and walk in another direction, back to them, before they sprung. They leaped from their bushes and attacked the boy, one with a katana pointed at his spinal column while standing behind him, and the other with her kunai at his throat. The boy gasped, then groaned loudly in pain.

The one with the kunai to his throat spoke in an angry, threatening voice, "Explain yourself. And be damn sure you're clear with your words, brat. Why are you so close to Konoha with that headband, and so soon after a huge alarm just rang out from Konoha?" The kunoichi was practically spitting venom by the time she finished.

The other kunoichi decided to move her katana up to the boy's throat as well, and, when her teammate noticed, she moved aside in order to face the boy she was interrogating. She locked her fiery eyes with the boy's confused, distraught eyes, and almost fainted at the memories she was forced to relive. She quicky shook it off, and continued scowling at the boy, waiting for his response. The boy opened his mouth, and was about to speak when he quickly stopped. The kunoichi in front of him looked confused, until she noticed how close the blad was to his neck, and motioned for her teammated to move it away slightly to allow him to talk, '_Sometimes shes TOO precise with that damn blade..._' She stopped her thoughts as she heard his voice crackle into existence.

"I... I just left Konoha. Why are you Iwa bastards so angry about that, though? I was under the impression you hate Konoha with a vengeance? Well, considering Konoha has the strongest, and now the only, Jinchuuriki, I suppose its enough to make Iwa jealous. Still, your actions don't make much sense..." The boy's smug voice, which had strangely gotten deeper randomly throughout his reply, faded off as the boy's confusion grew.

"That's for us to know and you to find out. Strike that, its just for us to know, considering we're going to kill you." The kunoichi with the katana replied smugly, hoping to scare the young boy.

"Tch. If you _could_ you'd be doing us all a favor. Yet I highly doubt you could kill me if you were the strongest Iwa ever produced." The boy's voice was completely serious, but his words just infuriated his interrogators even more, regardless of if he was smug or not.

"The hell we couldn't! Ka... Senpai, can I kill this brat, please?" The now identified leader glared at her subordinate, but before she could answer she heard the boy growl loudly. They both instinctively jumped back, as he crumpled to his feet and began groaning loudly, obviously in immense pain. The two exchanged confused looks, almost to the point of worry. They then felt a strange, horrible presence. The boy looked up at the leader of the two kunoichi, and his face would have broken her heart if it weren't for two things, first, she currently hated him, and second, her heart had been broken over a decade ago.

The boy asked them one simple question, "Why are you so made about me being a rogue ninja from Konoha... What do you care about Konoha?"

The two exchanged another glance, before the leader spoke up, "We were from Konoha once upon a time... But we left it, as did you. However, we left because our families had been killed by the Kyuubi. We left to live with other relatives, as we had no further ties with Konoha. We didn't become Iwa nin until about three years ago. And, now that you know this, you must die." The leader unsheathed her own katana and was about to move when a huge wave of chakra almost crippled the both of them. They looked on in fear at the boy, whose eyes showed him he was struggling against something.

"Please... Run. Run as fast as you can. I don't want to ruin your lives more than I already have..." The boy's cryptic request caused the two to go into shock and extreme confusion. Before they could react, the boy began to spout an evil red chakra, further stunning the two kunoichi. The chakra grew around the boy and surrounded him, before forming two tails simultaneously. He disappeared in a flash, reappearing behind the subordinate kunoichi, delivering a kick to her left shoulder, sending her flying through the trees. He then looked at the leader, and showed her his horrible red eyes. She noticed no sense of recognition of her, just a murderous gaze. She instinctively raised her katana to guard herself milliseconds before he disappeared once again. She acted on instinct alone, bringing her blade up to guard her face, blocking his clawed hand just in time. His other claw flew at her, and she blocked it with her hand, which he grabbed angrily. However, they both stopped in their tracks when a strange green glow eminated from her wedding ring, and the same glow began to emit from his eyes and stomach. The two wer rocketed backward as the glow began to stream away from the three sources, coming together between the two. The other kunoichi arrived just in time to see the green glowings converge and form a large sphere in the center of their small ambush spot. The sphere kept consuming the glow as it flowed off the three sources, getting more and more defined, and darkening in color. When it finally became jet black, the green glow on the ring, and on the boy's stomach and in his eyes stopped. The boy had been returned to normal, although damage was definately visible, and his eyes revealed that he was just as confused as the other two onlookers. The sphere began to twist around in itself, and then started to shimmer and regain some color in random bloches around the sphere. An image started to form in the sphere, eminating from the center in such a way as to allow each of the three onlookers to see the image perfectly from their respective angles. The image began to form into a figure the three of them all knew, although the two kunoichi knew the man in the sphere far better than the boy did.

"Dad?!"

"Yondaime-sama!?"

"Minato-kun!?"


	16. 15: Realization

**Chapter Fifteen:**** Realization**

**

* * *

**

The orb had indeed revealed an image of the aforementioned Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze. The two kunoichi stood there completely in shock, but it wasn't long before they noticed their enemy's reaction. The small boy they had been fighting was beginning to change once again. They noticed the red cloak forming once more, and his whiskers and canines became more visible. They heard a strange noise coming from his throat, it seemed to resemble some kind of gurgling, similar to how someone might sound if they were drowning, but the noise also clearly displayed a sinister anger that must have been filling the boy. The two kunoichi looked from the boy, to each other, to the image of their lost family member. The image of Minato held a scowl now, and you could see, in his eyes, he was analyzing the situation. Then, apparently something dawned on him, and his scowl fell into a frown. He opened his mouth to speak, but the small boy cut him off.

"**I'll kill you!**" Was all the boy said, but he ended his declaration with a feral roar that scared the two kunoichi. They gasped in horror as the boy leapt at the orb, and tried to slash it in half. However, he merely passed through the orb and slammed his clawed fist into the ground, forming a rather large crater considering he hadn't enhanced his fist with chakra. The boy spun around and took another leap at the strange orb, but failed once again, this time a tree taking his punch and turning itself into toothpicks almost instantaneously. The boy let out another feral yell before crumpling down to his knees and clutching his head as the cloak began to darken and a third and fourth tail began to form. The image of Minato decided to test the waters.

"So, Kyuubi, eh? I'm disappointed in you, I had had high hopes for you as a Jinchuuriki, Naruto. I thought you might be the one able to befriend Kyuubi, or at the very least resist his influence. Apparently, I was mistaken." The image of Minato held no emotion, but his remark helped the kunoichi realize just what was going on. The two looked at the boy with new eyes, but they quickly reverted to hate filled eyes as the boy leapt at the orb yet again. The image in the orb decided to speak once more, "Pathetic. You've lost all sense of comprehension and reason. I do hope this is more of the Kyuubi than you, Naruto. If not, I fail to see how you survived in the life of a shinobi this long." The image's words seemed to have sunk in this time, but the effect was far from desirable. A fifth, sixth, and then a seventh tail formed, as the skeleton of a fox began to create itself from the chakra and latch onto the cloak, creating a horrible image for the two kunoichi. But what was even worse for the two was the extreme amount of killing intent that now seemed to emanate from two sources within the boy. They noticed the chakra around his face fading a little bit, revealing his burnt flesh and angry blue eyes.

"You fucking bastard! You ruin my life and then you come preaching to me about being a failure? I should have just leveled the village when I had the chances, instead of saving it time and time again. Hell, I should've just let myself die when Pein tried to take me out. But no, I chose to try to save your damnable home once again. How foolish I've been. If this is what the Yondaime is really like, then fuck you and fuck Konoha. I think its high time me and Kyuubi-sama took our revenge on that place!" The horrible red/black chakra quickly shrouded the boy's face once more as soon as he had finished talking. The strange cloak then began to shudder, before strange blue and red orbs fired out from it in all directions, filling the clearing. The image of Minato broke his uncaring face and looked back in horror at his wife and daughter, but before he could warn them, something that even he didn't understand began to happen. Strange green orbs began to seep out from the trees, ground, plants, and seemingly the air itself. These strange green orbs seemed to be nearly double the size of the red and black orbs, and they were far more numerous by the time they stopped forming. The demon-cloaked boy moved his chakra tails over his head, all seven pointing in to one spot, which happened to have a blue orb in it, and the other orbs began to move in to that exact spot, merging with the blue orb and constantly expanding the darkening orb. However, the now-black orb underwent a strange transformation once the first green orb was absorbed. The orb instantly changed from an abyssal black to a blinding white, and nearly tripled in size from the first orb alone.

As the green orbs sped along and were engulfed by the growing white ball, the two kunoichi had realized it would likely be a good idea to retreat, as the strange green orbs that had been leaking from the trees had caused the trees themselves to disintegrate into ash, leaving a very large clearing all around them now. Before they had a chance to move away, however, they noticed that all the orbs, minus the hug once the boy seemed to be almost holding, were gone now. They stared at the horrible white ball, which was nearly the size of a house at this point, and held their breath as they saw it begin to move. The ball quavered before it instantly shrunk to the size of a baseball, the swift movement sending out a horrible shockwave that crippled the earth in all directions for quite a good distance, easily more than the quarter mile in any direction to the remaining trees. The boy's seven tails then moved in close together, almost as if forming one large, wide tail. A strange new chakra appendage began to form on the boy, and, to everyone's horror, it was revealed to be an eighth tail. This eighth tail wrapped itself around the other seven, binding them together as the orb began to rise seemingly on its own. The two kunoichi didn't want to take any chances, and immediately shunshined as far away as possible, which, due to their lower-than-normal chakra reserves thanks to their bought with the boy earlier, was only a small distance into the far-off forest. They looked back at the orb of their lost father/husband, and then looked up as the super condensed orb finally stopped rising. The strange white ball was easily fourteen stories up in the air, and its purpose confused everyone present.

The tailed boy crouched on all fours, and slowly backed away to the edge of the clearing, as the orb moved to the opposite side of the clearing, retaining its altitude. The boy charged at the other end of the clearing, before leaping up into the air, and then spinning his body forward several times before he reached the height of the orb. He spun his body around once more until his tail was at the prime angle, and slammed it into the orb. The orb immediately shot at the ground, crossing the immense distance in mere seconds. The image in the orb looked on in horror as the orb impacted the ground, and detonated.

* * *

The search party that had been sent first from Konoha had just sensed a very strange chakra presence. They realized that, from its size, it had to be something to do with their target. They quickly changed their heading and tried to close in for observation. As they got closer, one of them held up a hand, signaling to stop for a moment. The masked man waited as the rest of his team landed, before informing them of his observation.

"I have found that nearly a thousand trees have been destroyed up ahead. The method is unknown. The remains are mere ash, but it is strange, as I am sure that it wasn't fire that destroyed the trees. I feel we need to proceed from here on out with extreme caution." The large squad nodded in understanding, and again they were off.

The group hadn't traveled much further before they saw it. They saw a strange white speck rising into the air, and, judging from its size and distance, it was extremely high up. After a few moments of motionless observation, the group saw the speck stop moving, allowing a strange pause for nearly a minute before it moved again. The speck moved toward them for a few seconds, before strangely stopping once again. The group exchanged looks of confusion and worry, before they heard a great rumbling. They felt the earth shake for the slightest of moments before they saw a huge black figure leap into the air, flying at the speck it seemed. They noticed, albeit too late to save them, that the figure had begun spinning its body, before what had to be a tail extended out and smacked the speck straight into the ground. The group instinctively braced themselves with the few seconds they had before they felt the first effects, something akin to the entirety of the Earth shattering into trillions of pieces at once.

The group let out a yell as a blinding flash overtook them.

* * *

Well, there goes another chapter. Sorry to keep the updates so slow and small but...

Nah, just kidding, no cliffy this time.

* * *

The two kunoichi braced themselves as the orb impacted, knowing full well that their lives were about to end. They saw, even through their clenched eyelids, a blinding white flash encompass all of their being, but they felt no pain. They felt nothing. They opened their eyes as the immense blast faded, and saw that nothing had changed. That is, until they noticed the orb containing the image of Minato had disappeared, but before they could grieve their last chance at speaking to him, they noticed two figures in the clearing. They quickly moved to investigate.

The two decided to take their time, in order to allow themselves to be as cautious as possible. They were glad they had when they noticed the group of Konoha nin that were also moving in to investigate. The two were about to cast a genjutsu when they were trapped by a strange wood manipulating jutsu. The group from Konoha landed in front of them, giving them hateful looks as their leader stepped forward. "Stop struggling. We aren't here to fight with you, we're in just as much danger as you, you know. I'm going to have my subordinate drop his justsu, when he does, you have three options: Option one: Flee. We will not persue. Option two: Join us. We need to find out whats going on, and you're obviously curious as well. As long as you don't try anything, we won't. It'll be a temporary truce. Option three: try to fight the sixteen of us, but you will lose. What is your decision?"

The two kunoichi weren't stupid, "Option two." They replied, simultaneously. The leader nodded, and then looked at one of his squadmates. The man nodded and the strange wood retracted back into the ground. The two kunoichi fell to their knees for a moment at the loss of support, but quickly got back on their feet.

They looked to the man who had addressed them, and he signaled for them all to move out. The man raised his eyebrow at the way the two kunoichi recognised Konoha's sign language, but dismissed it for the time being.

* * *

The two figures in the clearing were grappling with each other, although the height difference seemed to hinder the smaller one, who had a strange cloak of demonic chakra fading back into his body. The bigger, obviously older one, sent a swift kick to the boy's stomach as the last of the chakra receded. The man had on a scowl, though his cloaked body showed little else of his form. The boy struggled to get up as the damage from the kick and the immense amount of demonic chakra that had just covered his skin began to sink in. He coughed up a bit of blood before struggling onto his feet, where he swayed slightly. The cloaked man just smirked, "So, you at least have some determination. Its something, I suppose. But its still pathetic." Another swift kick, this time to the boy's face, was delivered before the boy could respond. The man pulled out a kunai and approached the still down boy. He was about to stab the kunai into the boy's chest, when a blur appeared in front of him and a strange whirl sent him flying backward. He quickly regained his composure and saw a young girl standing in front of the boy, her Byakugan blazing, and a small, seemingly well controlled crater under her feet where he had been seconds before. The girl's eyes bore into the man's, hate filling her gaze as fifteen other shinobi landed simultaneously.

"Heh, so, you want to kill him yourselves _that_ badly eh?" Came the cloaked man's cold voice.

The girl tensed with anger before her hands blurred through a short series of hand seals before she disappeared. The man smirked as he whirled around only to be met with a barrage of hand strikes followed up by a huge blast of water. He was sent spiraling by the water and impacted a tree just over the small boy's limp body. The sixteen ninja moved in cautiously, as the man got back up. He walked fearlessly toward the now motionless Konoha ninja, but he quickly realized they were shocked by someting, and he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't entirely him. He turned his head slightly, and saw the boy back on his feet, his face void of emotion, sending glares in all directions. It was only then that the man noticed the boy's eyes were stilled a sinister, slitted crimson. The man lifted his head as he looked at the young boy, and he saw the boy lock eyes with him, before the boy's eyes widened as they returned to the standard blue. The man heard a motion behind him and whipped around in an instant only to find a barrage of attacks headed his way.

The man braced himself, but felt nothing. He looked up to see the boy in front of him, blocking the attacks, most of which had been stopped mere inches from connecting with the boy. The sixteen ninja looked at him in shock and fear, before the boy's arm moved up to the cloaked man's hood, and ripped it off.

The group gasped.

* * *

In Konoha, a distraught Tsunade was looking up at the Hokage monument, admiring the faces of her predecessors. She made her way to the head of the Yondaime, and as she stared fondly at him, she noticed a strange crack that formed quickly across the newly-fixed face. She sighed in irritation, "Damnit! My ass those sculpturs made it better! Oh, when I get my hands on..." She stopped her tyrade as the crack expanded quickly, before the entire head itself blew apart as if a bomb had gone off behind the face. Tsunade looked on in horror, she knew what this sign meant. And she wasn't entirely sure if it was good or bad right now...

"Shizune! More fucking sake!"

* * *

The assembled Konoha ninja, with their weapons still inches away from the face of the small boy, looked into the face of their greatest fallen hero, the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze. The very same man who had just been trying to kill their potentially even greater hero, Naruto. The group fell back quickly, the girl that had first protected Naruto having grabbed him and leapt away with him to keep him out of harm's way. The formerly-hooded man chuckled slightly. He wasted no time in his transition from laughter to question, though, "So, why are you imbeciles standing up for the Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi? Especially as weak and unstable as he is. What's your goal, to make sure no one but you kills him to take the power of the Kyuubi?"

The same girl who had protected and then grabbed Naruto finally spoke up, her voice still as angry as she looked, "You shut up, you imposter! Naruto-kun is a great man!" The rest of the Konoha group resisted the urge to look on in shock at their teammate, but the two Iwa shinobi did not.

The man merely continued his demeaning of Naruto, who had just regained consciousness in Hinata's arms, "Oh really? If he's so great, then why can't he restrain the Kyuubi with the seal I put on it? He's putting my sacrifice to waste and putting you all in danger!"

The group wanted to speak up, but they were unable to. They didn't know what was going on either, they just knew something was wrong with Naruto. However, there was someone who could shed some light on the predicament to them all, and luckily, he was now conscious and willing to talk.

"The only reason the Kyuubi has so much influence now is because I had to reabsorb him after the Kyuubi YOU sealed in me sacrificed himself. Some lunatic sealed off some of the Kyuubi's chakra from its attack on Konoha and then implanted it in his own son, creating a second Kyuubi. I had to do something to stop him from destroying Konoha and becoming the Kyuubi itself, so I reabsorbed the Kyuubi into me, but thanks to having had the Kyuubi out of my system for a while, your seal weakened even further, to the point of deteriorating. And this is the result. And, for your information, I was trying to abandon Konoha to keep all of them OUT of trouble!" Naruto's voice was solemn for his entire explanation, and everyone's eyes had widened in shock and realization as his speech finally sunk in. The cloaked man grimaced in anger, before appearing in front of Naruto with speed that none of the Doujutsu wielders in the Konoha group could track. Naruto tensed, fearing a fatal blow, but all he got, was a crowded hug by the Yondaime, and the two Iwa kunoichi, much to Hinata's jealousy.


	17. 16: The Vault

**Chapter Sixteen: The Vault  
**

**

* * *

**

The large, now platoon-size group that consisted of Naruto's friends, and newly discovered family, finally arrived back at the gates of Konoha. The circular formation surrounding Naruto broke up to reveal the jinchuuriki, who was welcomed with thunderous apploause from the still gathered, anxious crowd. The crowd noticed three unrecognizable figures standing around Naruto, and they quickly ended their applause to start spreading confusion and questions. The crowd then noticed the Iwa headbands on the two kunoichi, and they quickly got rowdy.

The other figure next to Naruto removed his hood to reveal his face, which shut the crowd up quite nicely. The crowd gazed upon the face of their fallen Yondaime Hokage, and were shocked and confused into silence and motionlessness. He stepped forward, in front of the two Iwa kunoichi, and let his village hear his long-lost voice of reason, "Please, don't let your hatred of Iwa fall onto my wife and daughter. Especially after all you've put my son through…" Nearly the entire village cringed and bowed their heads in shame. Minato turned back to his wife and daughter, "Girls, if you wouldn't mind…?" Much to the crowd's surprise, the two kunoichi wasted no time in ripping off their headbands and slashing the Iwa symbol straight down the middle. Minato sighed, "The genjutsu too, if you would…"

The crowd nearly fainted from the sight that now beheld them, standing protectively around Naruto was Minato Namikaze, his wife Kushina Uzumaki, and a young girl, not greatly older than Naruto, who had long, orange hair, blue eyes and wore the typical ANBU attire, with two katanas strapped to her back in an 'X' shape. The crowd had no time to rewelcome the Namikaze family, because once Tsunade had laid eyes on Kushina, all hell broke loose.

"Kushina!" Tsunade barreled forward at a speed most of Konoha's inhabitants could only track via the dust cloud that lead from the Hokage Tower to where Kushina was now being strangled to death via hug by Tsunade. Tsunade could be heard softly crying, "I thought you died when Naruto was born…?"

Kushina gave a sigh, one that relayed how remorseful she was now, "No… I was told by doctors that Naruto had died when Minato tried to seal Kyuubi in him… I knew Minato was going to die with what he was going to try, but the thought of losing Naruto too… I just couldn't bare it. I left as soon as they would release me, which was the next day." She turned to face Naruto, "Naruto… I'm so sorry I wasn't there. I honestly didn't know you were even alive. I just wish I could find the doctor who lied to me and make him go through what I have since that day, and then what you've gone through since then…"

Tsunade gave her a comforting look, while Naruto seemed to have taken the story rather well, he smiled up at his mom, hoping to reassure her. Tsunade turned to the other kunoichi that Naruto had returned with, and then turned back to Kushina after looking over her daughter, "Is that…"

Kushina didn't even let her finish, her relation to Naruto being confirmed with her hyperactive, "Yep! That's little Shume! Last time you saw her was when she was, what, two?"

Tsunade put on a thoughtful pose, "Yeah, sounds about right. I remember you chasing that little scamp around the village day in and day out. I still don't get where you Uzumakis get your stamina from, I mean come on, seven-hundred and fourty-six miles in a day, at age two?!" The crowd gawked at Shume after hearing this, and Shume promptly rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, which a lot of people saw as reminiscent of how Naruto used to do.

Before anything else could be asked, Minato spoke up on behalf of his family, "Well, I know you all have more questions, and we'll be happy to answer them later…" cue collective groan from the crowd, "…but, its been a long trip, and fighting a battle against Naruto is hard work, even for me. I think we'd all like to take a day to rest up, so, can we have the key to my estate back, Tsunade?"

Tsunade merely nodded and motioned for the Namikazes to follow her. They quickly fell into step with her as she headed for the Hokage Tower. The large crowd groaned once more before breaking up, letting the citizens return to their daily lives.

Tsunade and the Namikazes arrived at the Tower without incident, and proceeded in. Naruto moved to head up to Tsunade's office, but was pulled back by Minato as they walked straight past the staircase and went down a narrow hallway that lead to the basement. The group moved down the spiraling staircase into the basement to find a huge labyrinth of bookcases and shelves. Tsunade didn't stop, however, as she proceeded to lead the group through the maze, heading for the vault in the back of the room. Naruto voiced his curiousity, "What is this place, Baa-chan?"

Minato answered for her, "This, my son, is the Hokage's Vault. And I don't just mean the vaults we're going to. This whole room is considered off limits to anyone outside the bloodline of a current Hokage. Konoha keeps the most important things in this room, ranging from scrolls on SS-Rank jutsu and higher, to treaties with other nations, to our own money supply. Every Hokage that's ever been appointed has had their own vault created at the far end of the room, and since I was the Fourth, I have my own vault, which is where I presume the key and deed to my estate have been held."

Tsunade just nodded in confirmation, as the group exited the maze of bookshelves and arrived at what Naruto felt might be the tallest wall in the world. The floor of the room had apparently been sloping slightly during their whole trip, as the room had gone from a standard height to being larger than what Naruto perceived as the height of Kyuubi's kage. The wall he was staring at was a semicircle with five giant metal doors protruding from it, with the kanji for 'First' through 'Fifth' etched into the center of the circular doors. Naruto noticed that there seemed to be a large amount of space to the right of the door marked 'fifth', and reckoned that it was reserved for future Hokages, Tsunade finally stopped, and beckoned the Namikazes forward to the door marked 'Fourth.' She pulled out a small key and handed it to Minato as he passed by. Minato took the key and made his way to the front of the vault door. He slid the small key into the strangely small lock, and turned it. The door shuddered, then shattered into small chunks of metal, which then fell away and revealed a huge tunnel filled with scrolls.

Minato looked down at Naruto, "This, Naruto, is my vault. It mostly holds scrolls on the jutsu I learned or created over the years, and you now have complete access to it." Minato looked down at the key that had fallen to the ground and picked it back up, and Naruto watched as the key somehow changed shape, adding an extra groove to the bottom of its blade. Minato then handed Naruto the key and walked into the vault, Kushina, Shume, and Naruto following quickly after.

As the group moved through the tunnel-like library, Naruto began scanning the scrolls, looking for jutsu that might interest him. He found a scroll on the Rasengan, and moved to take it. Before he grabbed it, though, he felt the urge to stop and ask, "Uh... Dad..? Is it okay if I take this scroll?" Naruto's unease was evident, as he obviously wasn't used to calling someone a 'dad', nor even used to asking for permission.

Minato turned around and looked at the scroll Naruto was questioning. He smiled brightly, and nodded. He then added, "Naruto, this vault is yours, too. It is not only for the Hokage, but for his or her entire family. Aside from artifacts that we'll be seeing soon, don't worry about asking to take anything."

Naruto smiled brightly before pulling a scroll out of his pack, and before his family could ask he created nearly a hundred clones. The other Namikazes stood there, numbfounded, before the clones started grabbing every scroll in sight and rapidly sealing them into the scroll Naruto had pulled out. Minato studied the way Naruto was sealing the scrolls into the main scroll, and then calculated the amount of scrolls he was sealing away. He came to a stunning realization in his head.

Minato moved over to his real son, as he hadn't moved since creating the clones, and studied the scroll he was sealing things into up close. After having scanned the entire scroll several times over, Naruto noticed, and voiced his confusion, "Something wrong..?"

Minato smiled up at Naruto, "No, quite the contrary, actually. Tell me Naruto, has anyone taught you anything about creating Seals?"

Naruto looked on, still confused, "No, not really. I found one of Jiraiya-sensei's books on it a while back, though, and studied it during my month of training before the Chuunin exams. Somehow, I understood most of it. I didn't want to ask sensei about it because I thought he'd be mad I took it..."

Minato smiled even wider, "Well then, it would seem you have a gift for the art of Sealing, just like me. That will make your upcoming training easier, and yet more difficult at the same time. Dismiss your clones, now that you've taken pratically all my scrolls," Naruto cringed in guilt while Minato just laughed, "No need to worry, eagerness to learn is never a bad thing." Naruto heard Minato mumble something like 'unless you're learning from a hungover Tsunade...'

"Anyway, we should get moving, we're almost to the end of the vault, and I have a few things I want to give you from back there. Remember, though, no taking the artifacts, most of them I'm keeping for the sentimental value, so, in other words, THEY'RE MINE." Naruto looked fearful while Shume and Kushina just laughed.

Kushina finally spoke up, "Oh, relax Naruto, he's just teasing you. But still, don't go taking any of the artifacts, besides, most of them are older than Tsunade and wouldn't interest you." Naruto seemed to relax a bit at this.

The group moved on in silence once more, and quickly made their way to the very back of the long vault, where there was a large chest, securely fastened shut, under a shelf that had on it a strange scroll, bound with what appeared to be golden thread. Minato moved to the chest, and bit his thumb before going through a few handseals and placing his hand on the chest, which caused the bindings on the chest to glow red, and then promptly shatter and evaporate into nothingness. Naruto looked on, amazement and curiousity ablaze in his eyes, which Minato noticed. Minato chuckled to himself, "Don't worry Naruto, you'll be able to do things like that, and far better, when I'm through with you." Before Naruto could respond, Minato yanked open the chest and went rumaging around in it for a good few seconds before pulling something out, hiding it from his family, before turning around, whatever he had grabbed hidden behind his back. "Naruto, I have here one of the things I was going to give you, but first, I'd like to know, do you know how to wield a sword?"

The youngest blonde looked insulted, "Duh, grip and slash. Not the world's most complicated weapon." Minato chuckled at this, before blurring out of sight, and Naruto felt a long series of smacks all across his body. When Minato reappeared, he had a sheathed sword around Naruto's neck, and another on his back, out of Naruto's range of vision.

"The sword is a much more intricate, and far more challenging weapon to wield than you know, Naruto. I will be teaching you to use my own two katana, Chisei and Komash. Once you master the art of the blade, these two swords will adapt to you, and come to have their own special abilities when you use them. For me, Chisei becomes a heated, electrical blade, while Komash enlongates and lightens itself, allowing me to wield and utilize it much more rapidly. For you, each blade will do sometihng entirely unique. Just make sure you don't even think about letting your friends try to hold the sword, these blades were forged by a dear friend of mine for the sole use of the Namikaze clan, and anyone outside of Namikaze blood or marriage will be... harmed... by the blades. Again, each blade has its own way of harming someone it deems unworthy, and its own way of harming each individual." Minato finished his explanations by handing Naruto the two sheathed blades, which sparked and glowed when Naruto gripped their hilts carefully. Naruto was about to unsheath the blades and inspect them when Minato spoke up again, "Not now, Naruto, I have one more thing to give you, and, like I told the crowd, I'm rather tired, so I'd like to get out of here pretty soon. Strap on your swords, and lets finish up." Naruto nodded and strapped the two sheathed swords to his waist, one on each side of his hip, allowing easy access.

Minato closed the chest, and Naruto watched, just as amazed as ever, as the chest resealed itself just the way it was before. Minato then stood up straight and removed the gold-bound scroll from its custom shelf. Minato brought the scroll around to Naruto, "Naruto, in this scroll is my most powerful, feared, and well-known jutsu. It is called the Hiraishin, and it will be the pinnacle of your training. At your current level of skill, you wouldn't even be able to start trying this jutsu. First, you must learn the Shunshin, as that is the very basic of this jutsu." Naruto was about to speak up, but Minato didn't give him the chance, "I know, you can move faster with your wind and regular speed than you can with Shunshin, but, there are two things wrong with that, one, its impractical. It is a large waste of chakra to use either of those techniques. It is also rather flashy, and thus is a stupid thing to do when you need to be subtle. Second, you need rather straight pathways in order to use that at maximum efficiency, while the Shunshin is more controlled, and allows much more flexible pathways. Secondly, you will be learning the art of metalworking. You will need very specific instruments to use this jutsu, and custom-crafted ninja tools always work better than mass-produced ones do. Finally, you will need your knowledge of sealing that I will be expanding."

"If all goes as planned, you will be at my level of skill in all three areas within the next four months, give or take, depending on how many clones you use for certain things. However, this training will be highly demanding, and you won't be getting to go on any missions during this, nor will you have much time to see your friends. I recommend you take a few days to catch up with them and let them know you won't be available for quite some time. Just make sure you don't tell them you're learning the Hiraishin, I want it to be your most well-kept secret, as it will be your biggest Ace in the Hole." Minato finished by handing Naruto the scroll for the Hiraishin, which Naruto held on dearly, before carefully packing it away. "Well, lets get out of here, and, just to prove a point, Naruto..." Naruto looked on in confusion as his three relatives smirked evily before poofing away in three simultaneous plumes of smoke.

"What the- Oh, SON OF A BITCH" Naruto grumbled to himself as he realized he'd been conned into having to take the long way out.

* * *

Naruto awoke the next morning in his new house, which he was still getting used to due to it being nearly fifty times the size of his old apartment. He slowly sat up in his bed, going through a few quick stretches. He got up, changed clothes, and was about to jump out his window to the back yard, which was also the training field, when Shume burst into his room. "Hey squirt! Get downstairs and have breakfast already, we're tired of waiting on your slow ass!" Naruto just looked on dumbly at her, before climbing back out of the windowsill and following his sister downstairs to the kitchen. When he got there he saw his parents sitting at the table, talking about something, both of them turning to face the two siblings as they climbed down off the last stair.

"Ah, about time, sleepy head." Came Minato's cheery voice.

Naruto proceeded to sit next to his father, across from his mother, and was soon accompanied by his sister, who sat next to him. He looked at the feast his mother had prepared, and it dawned on him that his family must eat like he did, that being an unrestrained pig with a buffet. The table was filled with every breakfast item imaginable, from eggs, to toast, to bacon, to muffins. Naruto didn't even recognize half the things he saw, but they looked good, and he piled them up on his plate, much to his mother's delight and Shume's annoyance, "Jeez, Naruto, take it easy, the food's not going anywhere... yet." She added the last part as Naruto took his first spoonful, hastily shoving it down his throat as he ignored his sister. His eyes glazed over as he savored the tastes, and Minato and Kushina let out simultaneous laughs as he threw away his spoon and went to inhaling it into his mouth straight off the plate. Shume just shrugged, and piled her own plate with food before trying to out-eat her brother, which she would find to be nearly impossible.

After half an hour of this eating contest, Naruto and Shume were both filled to their limits. Minato decided to bring up the topic of Naruto's training, and the time frame they'd be operating in, "Naruto, about your training. It will take a long time, and be very intense. So I'd like to postpone starting it for two wee-" Naruto cut him off with a loud shout of confusion, resulting in Shume trying to regain her hearing through various methods, "As I was saying, I would like to postpone starting it for two weeks so you can go on missions with your friends and get some time with them, as once we start you will have little to no contact with anyone outside our family for quite some time. I've already informed Tsunade of this, and she's packed you full up with missions with every member of your age group, and of course with Gai's team. You're to be in her office for your first mission in twenty-three minutes. Get in the habit of being on time for things Naruto, Kakashi can vouch that I do not tolerate tardiness, I still don't get why he's late to everything nowadays, maybe I need to..." Minato's voice mumbled into nothingness as a mischievious gleam sparkled in his eyes. Naruto and Shume slowly backed out of the kitchen while Kushina just sat there laughing.

* * *

Naruto arrived at Tsunade's office with two minutes to spare, and Shume shunshined next to him the moment he arrived. "What the... Why're you here, Shume?" Naruto questioned.

"Baka, I came to grab the headbands you forgot to tell us about and get my own mission for the day. So, if you'll excuse me..." Shume pushed past him, nodded to Shizune, and walked into Tsunade's office, closing the door behind her. The two spare minutes Naruto had had evaporated just as Shume walked out of the office, carying a small crate and a mission scroll. She looked over to her brother, "The old bat's all yours, little bro." Cue stapler traveling at Mach Five just to the left of Shume's head.

"Ha! I knew it, you missed! Thats 500 ryo, Shishu!" Naruto heard Sakura's victorious claim as he hastily proceeded into the office, hoping that Tsunade didn't plan on aiming her, as Naruto's past experiences told him, painful chair at him at similar speeds to what used to be the stapler.

Tsunade smiled brightly as she watched Naruto walk in and hastily close the door on his sister, who could be heard Shunshin'ing away moments after. Naruto observed the room, and saw Hinata and Sakura standing on either side of Tsunade's desk, with the Godaime herself occupying the chair Naruto feared. "Ah, Naruto, good timing. I have a very demanding mission in store for you, and Sakura and Hinata here will be accompanying you." Tsunade pulled a mission scroll out of her desk, and Naruto saw the label, 'SS-Rank,' as did Sakura and Hinata. The two kunoichi paled at seeing Tsunade toss the highest-level mission scroll they had ever seen to Naruto, who nearly jumped for joy at the thought of performing such a challenging mission.

Tsunade began the debriefing, "This will be an assassination mission. The Lord of the Land of Ice has been tyranous and his people are sick of it. They want him dead, but they are very specific about what they want to happen. They want his followers killed off simultaneously, the night before he himself dies. There is a very strict time scale which must be followed, you must be at the village the Lord is staying at by nightfall, and you have the day after to plan the assassinations. The reason this is a double S rank mission is because the Lord has been rumored to have hired several missing nin, and there are reports that a large majority of them are at least A-rank. I wish you good luck, you should depart immediately." The three shinobi nodded in unison before Hinata and Sakura shunshined out of the room, leaving a grumbling Naruto to open the window and dash out. Tsunade chuckled to herself, "He's that strong and he still doesn't know the Shunshin?"

* * *


	18. 18: AN Sorry

Well guys, I hate to do this, I REALLY hate to do this, but I'm completely unsatisfied with my story as it is now, so I am going to rewrite it. I do apologize for not updating all summer but I had so many other things going down. However, I will give you a sneak peak into just how I plan to start changing the story. I will NOT be taking this story down, but I will also not be continuing it in its current format any longer.

However, I give you the first chapter of the remake right here, right now.

The new story I will be adding this chapter to when the time comes is titled, "Naruto: The Abyssal Defender" You can find it in my profile.

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

Naruto and Sasuke stared each other down. A vile purple chakra surrounded Sasuke, while Naruto had long since been engulfed by a red cloak of demonic chakra.

Sasuke was the first to move, going through the handsigns required for his Chidori. The familiar chirping sound came to life as Sasuke pumped some of the vile purple chakra into it, turning the electric ball of death a sinister black. Naruto's attack was much more subtle. He merely held out his open palm, forming a sphere of spiraling, chaotic chakra. He, too, pumped his justsu with his red chakra, giving the ball a dark red tint.

The two friends leapt off their respective rock faces, their spherical attacks held out in front of the, due for a head-on collision.

The moment of impact fast approached, with the two hurdling toward each other at breakneck speeds. Just as the attacks would've collided, NAruto released his jutsu, just in time for a hand to grab onto Sasuke's, but not before the Chidori he was wielding pierced Naruto's abdomen.

Lightning surged through Naruto's body as the hand's owner pulled Sasuke and themselves away, leaping back to Sasuke's rock face as Naruto began to fall, head first twoard teh rocky outcrop at the base of the waterfall. His body still crackled with lightning as he smashed into the water, before his body came to a screachign halt thanks to a large, jaggex boulder.

The last thing Sasuke saw brought a sinister smirk to his face as he passed out.

Kakashi pulled his fist from Sasuke's gut only to look on in horror as a huge burst of electricity released from Naruto's body. The water conducted the black electricity in such a way that it immediately cooked any and all living things in it to a dead, burnt crisp.

* * *

Kakashi lead a bandaged, yet mostly healed, Sasuke into Naruto's room. Sasuke looked on at Naruto's lifeless body, as memories richocheted around in his mind. He gave Kakashi a blank stare, inadvertedly revealing to his sensei the turmoil he was trying to make sense of. Kakashi continued to stare analytically at Sasuke for several minutes before sighing and walking out of the room.

Sasuke moved over to Naruto's hospital bed. He sighed as he scanned his thoughts for any alternative. He racked his brain for several minutes, but came up with nothing. He almost let a tear fall as he spoke, "I'm truly sorry taht I have to do this, Naruto, but I can find no alternatives. I know you wouldn't understand, but I think I finally understand my brother and his actions." With that, he nudged Naruto several times, and was satisfied when Naruto's eyes slowly opened.

Naruto gazed up into the red eyes of the Sharingan, as he saw Sasuke's pained face for a split second, before a sinister smirk took its place, and NAruto felt the familiar sensation of his insides being electrified. He fell back into unconsciousness just as he felt the depowered hand leave his chest cavity. The last sight that his mind registered was the shift in Sasuke's Sharingan, as the tomoes began to combine.


End file.
